[IN DEVELOPMENT] bbLean revived

By DBlake
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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DBlake

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(I'm not very good with coming up with project names. :/ Also, my first post here on Neowin :D)

I hope at least someone will be interested in my small project.

I noticed how the last build of bbLean released was in 2009 (a bit over 4 years ago). I also noticed how little x64 plugins there are. So, I have decided to make this project in the hopes to bring bbLean up to speed.

Current development status: Alpha (not tested thoroughly, initial tests successful)
Latest x64 bbLean compile status: Success, x64
Compiler used: MinGW64 4.7.3

 

I don't have any screenshots at the moment since I'm still developing it.

  • suisilverman, Brandon H and djdanster
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DBlake

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  On 17/09/2013 at 19:26, sanctified said:

Nice, are you going to update the code for new platforms or you intend also to add new features?

Well, at this point, I'm focusing on getting everything to compile under MinGW64 (minor code changes here and there) and getting some of (optimistically some of, more optimistically most of) the plugins with released source code to compile under x64. So far, I have bbIconBox+, uberbox_lite, bbLeanBar+, bbLeanSkin+ and bbStyle all compiling, compiled and working (in initial tests), so only minor code changes at this point until I have a good amount of plugins working. Thanks for the support. :D

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DBlake

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  On 17/09/2013 at 19:37, sanctified said:

If you want testers (specially with multiple monitors) I'll glady help you. Loved blackbox back in the day. In fact I made a couple of skins.

Sure! once I have a (somewhat) rich build available, I'll give you a shout!

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DBlake

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  On 17/09/2013 at 19:42, Max Norris said:

There's a blast from the past.. last time I desired an alternate shell was back in the XP days, but why not, sign me up too, I'll throw it on a machine for testing when it's available.

Definitely! bbSystemBar is giving me a bit of a struggle right now. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make that one work. :(

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DBlake

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  On 17/09/2013 at 20:09, DBlake said:

Definitely! bbSystemBar is giving me a bit of a struggle right now. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make that one work. :(

Well, bbSystemBar and bbWinSkin are out of the question, since neither were designed for x64 compilers. But, I did get the entirety of bbMein and bb4win_mod compiled under x64, which means bbLeanSkin+ and things of that sort! I want to keep the base bbLean as vanilla as I possibly can though.

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DBlake

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  On 18/09/2013 at 20:11, sanctified said:

I dont know man, a bb enviroment without bbSystemBar?

I haven't given up yet! I'm still working on it. It doesn't help that it was made for the MSVC Compilers...

Also, I fixed that transparency in apps with Aero enabled with bbLeanSkin. See:

http://i.imgur.com/AMLLHBl.png Works like a charm. Unfortunately, the black bar cannot be worked around.

  • 2 weeks later...
Neowinian

horusrogue

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What plugins don't work? I mean some haven't been developed since 2004-2008 :) I run Windows 7 64 Pro and BBlean [2009] runs perfectly for me! I'll be watching this thread though since I can't get a lot of the system monitoring plugins to run.

Screenshot:

 

http://postimg.org/image/pfpi1akh5/full/

Neowinian

xtp183

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Hello Dblake.

Since you are going to be looking at sources for plugins to try and compile 64-bit versions, perhaps have a look at these ones I found:

http://pitris.info/scripts/redir.php?app=BBsource&url=/programs/bbsource.zip

Source page: http://pitris.info/BBlean

The main site for plugins Lostinthebox.com seems to be dead, but apparently there was already 64-bit bbInterface and BBrun plugins created, at least according to the comments on this page:

http://blackboxdesktop.deviantart.com/journal/Blackbox-for-64-bit-Windows-No-problem-308348963

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gropax

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Hey people,

It's great to see this topic getting attention. A while back I saw many shell setups with bbLean, and absolutely loved it, so I tried to give it a go, but unfortunately, on a 64-bit system (Win7)... well, you probably know the issue, as this thread is just about it (I registered just for this, after seeing it popping up in Google).

Looking forward to seeing progress - would probably be up for a bit of testing, but I am not that familiar with bb yet. Even so, if I can contribute something, I would be happy to.

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DBlake

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  On 06/10/2013 at 16:58, gropax said:

Hey people,

It's great to see this topic getting attention. A while back I saw many shell setups with bbLean, and absolutely loved it, so I tried to give it a go, but unfortunately, on a 64-bit system (Win7)... well, you probably know the issue, as this thread is just about it (I registered just for this, after seeing it popping up in Google).

Looking forward to seeing progress - would probably be up for a bit of testing, but I am not that familiar with bb yet. Even so, if I can contribute something, I would be happy to.

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of updates these last few weeks. I've been rather busy with that unfortunate thing called real life. Since I haven't gotten any bad bug reports back from my testers, I might release a build soon! Needs a bit more testing though.

Grand Master

TAZMINATOR

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  On 11/10/2013 at 16:44, DBlake said:

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of updates these last few weeks. I've been rather busy with that unfortunate thing called real life. Since I haven't gotten any bad bug reports back from my testers, I might release a build soon! Needs a bit more testing though.

 

if you need help, let me know and i will be glad to help you out.

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DBlake

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  On 11/10/2013 at 17:51, shozilla said:

if you need help, let me know and i will be glad to help you out.

Sure thing. I'll PM you with a link to my latest build. I haven't made a new build about a month though since there's nothing more I can really add at this point. Also, since both bbWinSkin and bbLeanSkin are far too buggy in versions of Windows newer than Vista, they will have to be officially removed from my build (though I will leave the bbLeanSkin DLL in there just for completeness, though I will not support any bug reports related to it).

Unless someone can port it from using GDI to DirectX/Direct2d, or at least add a method for hooking the glass rendering and rendering our own frame on top of it, I can't do anything with it. Though, I did find TrueTransparency renders it's own frames just fine on top of Aero. I'm not sure how though. They most likely don't still use GDI like bbLeanSkin does at this moment.

 

tl;dr, expect a PM soon.

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Neowinian

Pitkon

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I am glad for the interest, being an administrator of 3 Blackbox sites and perhaps the most prolific styler since 2002 http://pitkon.deviantart.com However, BBLean didn't simply vanish in 2009. xzero450 moved BBLean to the next generation with a new branch that includes split and mirror gradients, outline text and lots more. His latest build is from 2012. I welcome your effort, DBlake, and I will gladly help anyway I can. I have tested almost all branches from 2002 onwards and I am willing to add ideas, publicity and stuff. Please feel free to e-mail me. Any drive to rekindle interest in BB is mostly welcome :)

  • 2 weeks later...
Neowinian

suisilverman

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I signed up for this forum because I love BBLean and would love to see it revived but lack the skill to do it.

 

I am running higher end nvidia quad monitor setup and I can def report bugs as I come across them.

 

A.K.A count me in for beta testing.or even Alpha testing

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DBlake

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I haven't been on here in a while. There hasn't been any progress at all. I've had a lot of (real-life) issues come up that took (and are taking) priority over programming. It'd be awesome if we had some skilled C/C++ devs in here that would be willing to help, as I can't do it all on my own anymore. Speaking of that, I need to find where I put the source code...

 

If we could get bbLeanSkin working properly on Windows 7 and higher, that would be amazing. It works somewhat at the moment (as well as it did in the build from 2009), but there are a lot of glaring issues (such as DWM compatibility) that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, I fear a (near-)complete rewrite will be the only thing to revive it. I'm not skilled enough at C++ to do such a thing. I'm thinking it just needs to be phased out completely since we have MSStyles theming which is far more customizable than bbLS.

 

Speaking of DWM compatibility, I'm think of a feature to implemen: Blur behind Panel and Slit (akin to the stock taskbar in 7).

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