Blog - The Costa GUI

The desktop is complete!

Posted on the 20th of August, 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 on the 19th of August, 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 on the 18th of August, 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 on the 30th of July, 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.