Blender Desktop - 07/27/05

Blender Desktop

In an attempt to make a Blender Desktop Environment I created Blender Desktop. It is a simple desktop enhancement tool that creates a small icon in the system tray of your computer (with the Blender Logo). Then by clicking on it in various ways it will launch menus which give full access to a pre-configured structure of Blender Resources. This structure is for the most part either urls or relative file locations. It requires that
the downloaded files be extracted into the root directory of the Blender Software (ie: …/Blender Foundation/Blender/) however if you have installed Blender into another location then it extract it to that location. Upon extraction the following folders and files are created:

blenderdesktop.exe - Main application (create shortcut to it in Startup)
blenderdesktop.ini - Configuration script (application variables)
icon.ico - Blender icon for system tray
bar1.bmp - Gui icons in a 16px row
bar2.bmp - Blender Desktop menu graphic
mywebsite.url - Change the url target to your website. Default is www.blender3d.org

blends/ - File in which you should save all of you .blends to. Use sub folders for .blend resources
blends/textures/ - File used for sharing textures. Redefine your User Preferences.
blends/samples/ - File used for sharing audio. Redefine your User Preferences

games/ - Save your Blender Games (.exe) here. Same goes with downloaded Blender Games.
movies/ - Save your Blender Movies here. Same goes with downloaded Blender Movies.
images/ - Save your Blender Images here. Same goes with downloaded Blender Images.

This is just the beta version of this software so obviously expect some serious improvements on look, feel, and structure of the files. For the most part it is designed to make all of yours and others Blender resources available through one simple menu. It also allows for some fast and simple links to Blender resources on line. Not to mention, it also gives access to some of the major websites. The actual release of the software will include both a zip version and an installer version and both will have much more populated lists.

Let me just explain some of the features of the menus:

RMB Menu

Blender Website - Opens Internet Explorer to the www.blender3d.org website.

Blender Desktop - Opens the About Info box.
Check Updates - Opens Internet Explorer to the www.weekendblend.hostmatrix.org/download/bd/index.html page which is not available. Fixed in future download.

Reload Menu - Reloads the configuration settings. Usefull for development or modifying sytem variables.

Exit - Closes all files running in association with Blender Desktop application.

LMB Menu

Blender Software - Contains options for opening Blender (“Launch”), rendering (“Render” - feature currently launches Blender - it will allow for command line rendering), Help (www.blender3d.org/Support), Getting Started (help manual), Uninstall (uninstalls Blender).

Blender Websites - Contains a list of Blender Websites. If you have websites that you would like added please email me for placement.

Blender Forums - Contains a list of Blender Communities with forums. If you have forums that you would like added please email me for placement.

Blender Resources - Contains a list of sub menus for Blender Resources. Everything from Audio to Tutorials and Textures. Gives the option to point directly to the resource site or to go to a search page of all available websites. A Google Option may be available soon with a prompt used to create a search even before going to www.google.com. If you have websites with resources that you would like added please email me for placement.

Blender Games - this will contains a list of very popular Blender Game demos and it

currently contains an option to search the web for games or look in your /games/ folder for Blender Games.

Blender Movies - this will contains a list of very popular Blender movies and it currently contains an option to search the web for movies or look in your /movies/ folder for Blender Movies.

Blender Images - this will contains an automatically updated list of the Blender Gallery images and it currently contains an option to search the web for images or look in your /images/ folder for Blender Images.

My Website - this contains a submenu with “Home Page” (opens IE to home page - future will have firefox!), “My Website” (opens IE to url in mywebsite.url shortcut), and “Address Prompt” (opens IE to address given in a prompt box).

Double Click Menu

Opens the About Box.

Obviously there is a lot of potential with this little icon but it’ll just take time to populate it and get it working without a glitch. It’ll eventually have loads of features and maybe even be able to control other Windows functions automatically. I hope to get a list of wallpapers made with Blender to use as background images for the desktop and allow the user to specify which background to use. They’de have such features as dynamic calendars and random images for those who have dsl/cable/T1 lines and it only requires a simple Refresh to change it! I had experimented with this a while back but failed to completely finish it.

I hope that this will soon become an optional install feature of the Blender Software and it will really make it nice for Windows users to share files and have a structured architecture. It is a big set back for Linux and Mac users but I’m sure that there are similiar functions available for you all. I was suprised at how quickly I became accustomed to using it and when I booted into Linux I found that I was constantly looking for the icon and wanting to go to my images and blends folders but i had to go through the browser!

For all of those who want a test run get the Beta sources here:

http://www.weekendblend.hostmatrix.org/blenderdesktop/download.zip

For some screens:

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/3096/tray5by.png

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/4999/leftmenu3mu.png

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/3093/rightmenu3ke.png

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/8435/about0ge.png

For contact information:

prince7 at gmail.com

I’d like all of your suggestions and if you would like any further information please let me know - looking for good graphics and icons so if you have some good blender graphics email me them and i’ll try to figure out a way to add them in!

Enjoy!

Daniel (prince)

Ummm… kinda went overboard with the readme’s didn’t ya? in every folder? really think that’s necessary?

Plus I don’t really want to mave all my .blends and textures and movies to a new folder. How about a way to configure it so it will point to a directory that already exists?

Plus I’d probably prefer this to be Blender Specific. As in not controlling windows features.

gr8hamster is right, alot of us save our projects in new folders with textures and everything else we need (call them project folders). But I think that is really great that you made this program, I was thinking of making something similar, but a bit more talored to my personal needs and qurks.

Hey I think this is a great idea, but yes we need to be able to configure paths ourselves, great work I think this will catch on!

Ken :smiley:

If this is pursued as an application external to Blender, maybe something comparable could be implemented in Java and therefore attain a certain sense of platform independency.

Better yet may be to attempt to implement something like this in Python so it can run within Blender, or even as a separate instance of Blender just with the Blender Desktop GUI if you want to keep this a truly separate application.

Even if made as a script that can run within a Blender window it would probably be useful and relatively easy to code. Tighter Blender integration has multiple benefits, some drawbacks too (e.g. no Windows system tray icon), but most of all the support of the full Blender Python API, which is incredibly capable as is.

The Makehuman team made some interesting advances lately in creating GUIs in Blender, so the latest Blender Python API offers lots of possibilities in bringing something like this to life, even within a more advanced and customized GUI if that’s preferred.

RobertT

Oh, that was just so that each folder would be included in the .zip - if there are no documents in the folder it won’t copy them properly…yeah, the final version wouldn’t have that - maybe a simple html page with a brief description or something…

Plus I don’t really want to mave all my .blends and textures and movies to a new folder. How about a way to configure it so it will point to a directory that already exists?

Yes, I agree, it is anoying to have to move all of your .blends but you could just move all of your files over and drop them (subfolders and all) into the /blends/ folder and it would work rather nicely - it’s just a matter of it not saving to say My Documents but rather that folder - you can still have subfolders with projects in them… this was it just makes it easier to share textures, audio and other .blends without pointing to directories all over the computer - they are all in subfolders - of the Blender Directory none the less! :slight_smile:

As far as custom configuration…i just got started working with the actual tray and gui and everything and I was focusing more on the look of it before I got to the functionality. All of this is in the configuration file called blenderdesktop.ini - if you go through you will see some very basic coding and all you would have to do is extract the .zip to any folder one above your .blends folder and then in the .ini file point all of the shortcuts (because that’s all they really are) to the proper folders (some will be subfolders others will need to start with the drive letter or %Program Files% syntax…). Basically all of the configuration settings are in the .ini file - thinking about it now it might be more advantageous to place all of the project folders (blender desktop folders) in the /Blender Foundation/ directory and just point to blender.exe as a subfolder relationship - it would make for a cleaner uninstall of both Blender Desktop and Blender itself… As far as custom configuration from the GUI - i can do that - all that is needed is to run a command line operation to open notepad and open the .ini file once open - then you can run custom operations…

Plus I’d probably prefer this to be Blender Specific. As in not controlling windows features.

I did not mean as in controlling all windows components just ones that would relate to Blender Desktop - such as the mentioned wallpaper changer which would make for a very nice addition seeing as it would allow for more dynamic desktops (not alot of people know that you can use html pages on the desktop - and if the contain iframes then you can litterally have content feed from the web onto your desktop!) No, i wouldnt want to make it a Windows device - it’s a Blender software that runs unfortunately only on winblows…

I’m not all that good with java and it is a real pain sometimes not too mention the download for it is large - I wouldn’t op for Java - but you’re right it is a more platform independant solution…

…Python…

I didn’t want this to be a new window of the Blender Software - I wanted this to be a way to control Blender and access Blender related content, both on the web and on your computer. Python might be a good idea however the Makehuman project isn’t my idea of an amazing GUI - don’t get me wrong - it is an amazing accomplishment - and yes it is a very stable and productive gui - very pretty too! But, and here’s the big but, it requires a very capable graphics card - sure I have one and you have one but not everyone who enjoys Blender has a power machine - my old laptop has integrated and it grinds to halt when I try to run Makehuman… Where as with the system tray icon it requires nothing more than the RAM, GPU, and CPU of the OS itself - something around 8MB GPU and 64MB RAM and 400MHZ CPU - not a whole lot… Blender probably wouldn’t even run at that minimum! :frowning:

Anyway, I do like the idea of integrating more with Blender - in fact I plan on making an advanced menu which would allow for savvy users to run command line code on blender to render, open certain files, run certain scripts and everything without ever having to open blender through the start up menu, navigating to the proper blends, windows, etc… It would be something to look into to that Blender Desktop (after it’s progressed quite further) be an optional download/install with Blender and that it even if you opt out you can install it at a later date from within Blender itself! We could always create a window too - that or a menu with all of the same functions on it… I’m no good with Python - i’m the first to admit it but if someone can point me to step by step how to make a new menu I can expound on that and make it a full fledged project…

I must say that I’m very pleased that this idea is actually a good one - Of late I don’t share alot of ideas just because everyone has an opinion and it seems like each has more negatives then positives… But atleast a few like it. I’ll quit with some ideas on how to go further:

  1. Obviously having it be a Windows only install is down right annoying and must be developed for all platforms (even if not the same looking) - sorry Linux and Mac! :frowning:

  2. More Blender unique icons and graphics.

  3. More items to be added into the menus - i’ll be going over to Blender3d today and copying all of the major links into it…

  4. More customized configuration settings.

  5. Work on an installer.

  6. Setting up a webpage (once it gets big enough and catches on - hopefully a single html page can be added to blender3d just for blender desktop… a guy can dream! :slight_smile: )

I think that that is a good enough start - for a beta version anyway…

One last point, I know that the old timers (thank God for them!), do not like change too much and I can understand that - I didn’t like having to move all of my files and directories and User Preferences - but, once I did it was a lot easier - and with all of the publicity that Blender is getting soon we’ll have more and more beginners who haven’t started a project folder, who don’t have over 20,000 blends, images, movies, games etc… and to them - it’s a nice feature that would make it easier - they don’t know it any different! It’s like having a farm and building a better barn (not to liken the Blender Desktop as a better directory structure) but because you don’t want to move your tractors over you don’t use the better barn!? Bad example but you get the idea… it might be a pain once - but if it sticks around long enough it could be something quite impressive!

I’m still open to all of your ideas, crits, comments, suggestions - the good, the bad, the ugly - give it all! :wink:

Daniel

It looks really nice, but one thing bothers me: in your screenshot I see the text ‘Blender desktop is property of the Blender Foundation’. I do not believe that this is the case. In extreme cases this could lead to people complaining to the Blender Foundation when the application damages their computer so I think you should remove this notice.

Cheers,

B@rt

I actually put that in there? LOL - believe me, it was a mistake - I have no objections to Blender 3D “owning” it but seeing as they don’t then it would make little sense - it’s fixed in the update:

http://www.weekendblend.hostmatrix.org/blenderdesktop/blenderdesktop.ini

Just download it. Delete the old .ini file. Rename new one to “Blender Desktop.ini” (will be V1 release). Reload Menu.

Now it has tons of links (yet more to be added!) New functions and changed features - it’s getting better! Keep your suggestiosn coming!

I think it’s a good idea. I generally update my start menu to do all these kinds of things though (because I’m an old-time luser).

Anyway, in response to the “cross-platform” idea, if you can do it, great! But gr8hamster and everyone else needs to understand that what is being programmed here is Windows, not Blender. Your desktop is a Windows-specific creature.

The Mac shouldn’t be too hard to do the same thing to; like Windows it has a clear-cut, well-specified design and API across all machines it operates on.

Linux and Unix users should already know that X does not define any WM protocol. Hence the plethora of competing and incompatible window managers. Gnome and KDE (my fav) and sawfish, etc. are good and very stable, but there are literally hundreds of thousands of other window managers that are not well-behaved. Even among the three I mentioned the way you do things like: add menus; modify the desktop and background image; position, size, and align windows; send messages to windows; invoke command processes; etc. are significantly different. Prince could spend the next five years just getting versions out for the major WMs.

/me puts soapbox away/

Prince is this still being worked on. I clicked the link and got a 404 error

Please don’t bump old threads, I thought this was common known by now, but it seems some can’t get it, if you want to ask the author of the thread, it would be better to send him a PM rather than bumping such old thread. Locked.