I added soft-edged, semi-transparent bands behind and to the inside edges of the frames that cast drop shadows over the photos and the desktop. The framed images could be moved anywhere on the screen, and they faded in and out. Despite the learning curve, most issues were resolved fairly quickly, but I was stymied for a while by the problem of positioning the framed photos so that they sat above desktop icons but always remained beneath every other window. Normally, when you click on a window, it pops to the top of all other windows. This is the behavior I wanted to prevent, but Windows really wants to pop active windows to the top. After a lot of searching, I came upon the kluge of associating my framed photo window with Program Manager. Remember Program Manager, the Windows 3.1 “desktop?” It’s still there in Windows XP, although hidden away.

When I was about half-way through development, Windows Vista started getting a lot of press. I read about its graphics subsystem, Avalon (now Windows Presentation Foundation), and all the fancy eye candy it was to offer. I wondered if Avalon would render redundant or obsolete all of the work I’d put into fading images and creating drop shadows--or if DG+ would even run under Vista. Then, other work caught my attention, and progress on DG+ petered out.

I hadn’t touched DG+ in nearly two years, but I resurrected the source files to take a few screenshots. Watching our photos fade in and out on the desktop was very pleasing, and it almost made me want to restart the project. Maybe it would port smoothly to VB.NET 2005. There couldn’t be that much more work …

What am I, crazy?!?