Tag Archive for WCL

Wallpaper Cycler Development

4 Oct, 2011  2 Comments

Now that my book is finished, I finally have some time again to work on my development projects, and I re-started development on Wallpaper Cycler.
There are a couple of major issues that I have identified with the current released version of Wallpaper Cycler. Because of those issues, my first idea was to start designing a new version of Wallpaper Cycler from scratch. After thinking a bit about that, I changed my mind. It will be too much work. Instead, I will rewrite parts of the current version of Wallpaper Cycler from scratch to make it more robust.
Right now, I can think of the following major issues. Each item contains a solution that I’m thinking of implementing to fix the issue.

  • The image loading code is not as robust as I would like it to be. It’s error prone, and crashes on certain files. To resolve this issue, I will throw away all current image loading code and rewrite it all. The result should be more robust, more resilient to corrupt image files, and more flexible. It will also support new image formats, but I don’t know yet exactly which formats. If you have image files that cause Wallpaper Cycler to crash, you can always send them to me.
  • The current WCL file format often gives problems. These problems are especially noticable with big wallpaper lists (> 10.000 wallpapers). Because of the issues with the file format, Wallpaper Cycler sometimes corrupts the WCL. To resolve this issue, I will throw away all WCL saving and loading code and replace it with a completely new file format. Just as with the image loading rewrite, the result will be more robust, more flexible, and hopefully more performant.
  • Too complex/confusing UI. Wallpaper Cycler has a lot of features. Unfortunately, the result is that the user interface is not always easy to use. Some people simply get lost in the user interface. To start resolving this issue, I’m thinking of replacing the toolbars with a modern, context-sensitive, ribbon bar. I’m also thinking of including an option to choose between a Basic UI and an Advanced UI. In the Basic UI, certain less used option are not shown or burried deeper away, as to prevent them from cluttering up the UI.
  • The layout editor is often cause of frustration. The current layout editor has a number of usability issues. I don’t have any concrete solutions yet, but I need to find some solutions to try to make it much more user friendly, at least for basic layouts.
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