Blog - The Costa GUI

Theme selector done

Posted August 21st, 2008

I spent today working on the theme selector. It’s as good as done now, and I think it turned out pretty well. Unlike the previous versions of Costa you don’t have to type the filename of the theme. Now you can browse the themes - with previews of each theme - and choose the one you like. The changes will take effect immediately. In fact, all changes you make to configuration files will take effect right away.

Since I’m hoping to get user submitted themes, all theme files contain theme name and author, which is shown in the theme selector.

The desktop is complete!

Posted August 20th, 2008

I’ve finished the “Customize desktop link” dialog, and I’ve also added a run dialog to the desktop. I’ve also tested the desktop for bugs, and so far I haven’t found any. I’ve learned from my mistakes in the past and have taken a lot of measures to avoid a crash if an error should occur. Every single computer program probably has bugs in it, but I haven’t found anything so far. I’ll release a test version before version 1.0 to make sure anybody else doesn’t come across a bug.

It took me less than seven days to make the desktop, thanks to my GUI toolkit which really simplified making buttons, dialogs and other UI related parts of the desktop.

Made on Mac OS X

Posted August 19th, 2008

I made a lot of progress on the desktop today. Once I’ve finished the “Customize desktop link” dialog (which is basically the same as “Shortcut Properties” in Windows) the desktop will be completed. Once I’m done with it, I’ll start work on one of the accessories.

In the past I’ve kept Costa’s source for myself, and I haven’t shared much information on how I develop the GUI.

Site online again

Posted August 18th, 2008

I’ve had a long break from programming. Almost a year, in fact. But in the past three weeks I’ve been trying out several new design ideas for Costa. And I’m not just talking about the design of the interface - I’m talking about the underlying design, about how everything should work. I’ve come to a conclusion.

Costa 0.8.0 released

Posted July 30th, 2005

I’ve just released version 0.8.0 of my QuickBASIC GUI, Costa for MS-DOS. It has many new features, including themes and multiuser support. No accessories are included (didn’t wanna include half-finished tools), but it’s still a fully functional GUI.