Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

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WindowBlinds had some similar features, but I’m pretty sure Compiz almost immediately did far more. The state of the art third party software on Windows in the 2000s tended to try to emulate Vista Aero on XP, or skin Vista/7 differently but with similar functionality. The Molten theme from WindowBlinds 6 is somewhat reminiscent of burning windows, but I don’t think it actually did that. Maybe at some point you could burn the start menu down, I can’t remember.

Some stuff, like the desktop cube, could be emulated, but not too well. On Compiz, everything was drawing during the animation, showing off the modular compositing that it enabled, whereas most desktop cube toys didn’t update the screen while rotating, making it less impressive.

Stardock's WindowFX is the Compiz equivalent for Windows. It still seems to exist: https://www.stardock.com/products/windowfx/

I remember trying it in the XP/Vista era alongside Compiz/Beryl and it was quite unstable. As a result it never reached the popularity of the (mostly usable) WindowBlinds.

Oh man, I forgot all about Stardock or how much I played Sins of a Solar Empire at one point. Talk about a game that should have been waaay more popular. I was (and still am) impressed by how Stardock made Windows Apps and Games - until I saw that, I had never realized that a mostly programming utility house could also do games and do them extremely well.

WindowBlinds was ok, but the performance was pretty bad and I don't think it could live-update the windows in the expose like view. It just displayed screenshots. Compiz on the other hand was silky smooth.

Yeah, Compiz could literally play a movie across two or three sides of the cube, with the video player "bent" in 90º. Felt quite impressive that the graphics card could even handle that.

Yes I think that was it! I never used it for Windows XP but I definitely used it for earlier versions of Windows.

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