Solaris is a proprietary Unix operating system originally developed by Sun Microsystems. After the Sun acquisition by Oracle in 2010, it was renamed Oracle Solaris.
In computing, an icon is a pictogram or ideogram displayed on a computer screen in order to help the user navigate a computer system. The icon itself is a quickly comprehensible symbol of a software tool, function, or a data file, accessible on the system and is more like a traffic sign than a detailed illustration of the actual entity it represents. It can serve as an electronic hyperlink or file shortcut to access the program or data. The user can activate an icon using a mouse, pointer, finger, or voice commands. Their placement on the screen, also in relation to other icons, may provide further information to the user about their usage. In activating an icon, the user can move directly into and out of the identified function without knowing anything further about the location or requirements of the file or code.
Bluecurve is a desktop theme for GNOME and KDE created by the Red Hat Artwork project. The main aim of Bluecurve was to create a consistent look throughout the Linux environment, and provide support for various Freedesktop.org desktop standards. It was used in Red Hat Linux in version 8 and 9, and in its successor OS, Fedora Linux through version 4.
Stardock Corporation is a software development company founded in 1991 and incorporated in 1993 as Stardock Systems. Stardock initially developed for the OS/2 platform, but was forced to switch to Microsoft Windows due to the collapse of the OS/2 software market between 1997 and 1998. The company is best known for computer programs that allow a user to modify or extend a graphical user interface as well as personal computer games, particularly strategy games such as the Galactic Civilizations series, Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, and Ashes of the Singularity.
WindowBlinds is a computer program that allows users to skin the Windows graphical user interface. It has been developed by Stardock since 1998, and is the most popular component of their flagship software suite, Object Desktop. It is also available separately, and as an ActiveX/COM component called DirectSkin. Introduced in its sixth version, it supports alpha blending effects similar to the compositing of Windows Vista, but on Windows XP.
WinCustomize is a website that provides content for users to customize Microsoft Windows. The site hosts thousands of skins, themes, icons, wallpapers, and other graphical content to modify the Windows graphical user interface. There is some premium or paid content, however, the vast majority of the content is free for users to download.
In computing, a theme is a preset package containing graphical appearance and functionality details. A theme usually comprises a set of shapes and colors for the graphical control elements, the window decoration and the window. Themes are used to customize the look and feel of a piece of computer software or of an operating system.
DesktopX was a shareware desktop enhancement program that allowed users to build their own custom desktops. Amongst its features was a complete widget engine for Windows as well as a desktop object system. User creations could be exported as .desktop files or as widgets. The program was distributed with Object Desktop as well as stand-alone.
Object Desktop is an online software subscription service created by Stardock for OS/2 and relaunched for Windows in 1997.
DirectSkin is a software component that is used by software developers to add skinning capability to their applications, which may or may not be exposed to end-users. It is made by Stardock, and is derived from the WindowBlinds component of their software subscription package, Object Desktop. Being implemented as an ActiveX/COM component, it may be used by any COM-capable language, including Visual Basic, VB.NET, C#, C++ and Delphi.
Stardock Central was a software content delivery and digital rights management system used by Stardock customers to access components of the Object Desktop, TotalGaming.net and ThinkDesk product lines, as well as products under the WinCustomize brand.
AveDesk is a freeware widget engine for Windows XP that runs small, self-contained widgets called "desklets", as well as ObjectDock "docklets", and is created by Andreas Verhoeven, a freelance software programmer.
Bradley R. Wardell is an American businessman, programmer, author and AI Engineer. He is the founder, president, and chief executive officer of Stardock, a software development and computer games company.
SUSE Linux Enterprise is a Linux-based operating system developed by SUSE. It is available in two editions, suffixed with Server (SLES) for servers and mainframes, and Desktop (SLED) for workstations and desktop computers. Its major versions are released at an interval of 3–4 years, while minor versions are released about every 12 months. SUSE Linux Enterprise products receive more intense testing than the upstream openSUSE community product, with the intention that only mature, stable versions of the included components will make it through to the released enterprise product.
The Tango Desktop Project was an open-source initiative to create a set of design guidelines and to provide a consistent user experience for applications on desktop environments. The project created a set of icons known as the Tango Icon Library and that were described as a "proof of concept". The Tango Desktop Project was a project of freedesktop.org, and was closely linked with other freedesktop.org guidelines, such as the Standard Icon Theming Specification.
StyleXP is a computer program designed to modify the graphical user interface of Windows XP. As of version 3.19 features include modifying themes, explorer bar, backgrounds, logon screens, icons, boot screens, transparency, cursors and screensavers.
Windows XP visual styles are customizations of the graphical user interface of Windows XP. "Luna", "Royale", "Zune", and "Embedded" are codenames of the official visual styles designed for Windows XP by Microsoft. Since Windows XP, themes include the choice of visual styles as well. By default, "Luna" is preinstalled on Windows XP Home and Professional editions, "Royale" is preinstalled on Windows XP Media Center Edition and "Embedded" is preinstalled on Windows Embedded Standard 2009 and Windows Embedded POSReady 2009. In addition to the preinstalled visual styles, Microsoft has released additional ones for download. Third parties have also released visual styles, though these require modification of core Windows components to work. Visual styles are compatible with all Windows XP editions except Starter Edition.
Desktop Architect is a third-party replacement for the Desktop Themes control panel in Windows 95, 98, ME and 2000. It is also fully compatible with Windows XP and Vista. However, in Vista, the startup sound does not work, and the Network Neighborhood icon has to be changed manually. It is not known at this time if this program works with Windows 7.
Rainmeter is a free and open-source desktop customization utility for Windows released under the GNU GPL v2 license. It allows users to create and display user-generated customizable desktop widgets or applets called "skins" that display information. Ready to use collections of skins can be downloaded and installed in packages known as "suites".
