03 Mar 2022Developer post

Desktop Panels Update 1.19.0

Hi everyone, Yes, it's been a long time (yet again), but here is the next DP Update. Besides refactoring and other optimizations, Version 1.19.0 includes the Steam Workshop Integration. Update Summary: News: - New Steam Workshop feature to share your Configs - New Disk space usag

Hi everyone,

Yes, it's been a long time (yet again), but here is the next DP Update.
Besides refactoring and other optimizations, Version 1.19.0 includes the Steam Workshop Integration.

Update Summary:

News:
- New Steam Workshop feature to share your Configs
- New Disk space usage indicator at the info bar

Updates:
- Desktop Panels also works on Windows 11 and will be officially supported

Fixes:
- Fixed the bug where the panel's page didn't update the list when clearing all panels

Here is an image to compactly describe the Steamworks Integration:

The additional window at the top right is the new Workshop window which can be opened for each Config you have.

Simply right-click a Config and select the "Workshop" entry as the image shows:

After the Workshop window shows up, it's up to you to fill out the fields. Most of the fields should be self-explanatory.

Some important things to remember for the workshop integration:

You will have to accept the Workshop terms of service in order to upload content to the workshop, otherwise, the uploaded content may not be visible.
The Title field is mandatory to upload something to the workshop. Other fields can be left empty
Tags are helpful to specify the type of content you are uploading. It also helps users to filter and find your Configs on the Workshop page.

Currently, there are few configurations, but here is the Workshop Page for Desktop Panels. I uploaded some Panel Chan Configs.

After you have subscribed to a Config in the Workshop, you can click on the refresh button in the top right corner. DP will then download the Configs in the background and update the list when it's done.

The marked area at the top right shows the refresh button.
The Steam Icon on the Config means that this is a subscribed one.

Website Updates:
I also updated the Desktop Panels website, yay :D
It now summarizes all current features.
You can take a look at it here: https://knakra.com/desktop-panels/

About the Development:
The next step would be the "Automatic Creation Of Panels For A Folder On Your System" feature.
Yes, I still don't have a short feature name for it. Maybe I come up with a name during development :)

Besides that, I also need to update the visuals and the demo video of Desktop Panels on the Steam shop page, still hadn't time to do that, unfortunately.

After the Stuff mentioned above, I will start the transition from early access to the full release.
I am not sure if I can get it done by the end of Q1 so I may move it to Q2 this year.

If you have any questions, just leave them in the comments section of this event.

Thanks for using Desktop Panels.

Until next time.

Knakra

For Feedback please write a review.
For Bugs please use the Steam discussion board for Desktop Panels
For Feature and Idea requests please use my frill.co @ https://feedback.knakra.com

Original post

17 Sep 2021Developer post

Desktop Panels Update 1.18.0

Hi everyone, I just released DP Version 1.18.0. Update Summary: News: - New Hotkeys feature for your Configurations - New Toggle All Panels feature to show/hide all panels with a hotkey Updates: - Desktop Panels now stores the settings differently. This means the current settings

Hi everyone,

I just released DP Version 1.18.0.

Update Summary:

News:
- New Hotkeys feature for your Configurations
- New Toggle All Panels feature to show/hide all panels with a hotkey

Updates:
- Desktop Panels now stores the settings differently. This means the current settings are all reset with this update.
- The Current Panels page will now show a scrollbar when it's needed.

Fixes:
- Fixed the bug where Click-Through panels don't get click-through when loading a config
- Fixed the bug where you couldn't click on the initial config in its empty state

The highlight of this update is the new hotkey feature.
This feature allows you to create hotkeys for all of your configurations.
Here is a gif to visualize it.

The new Hotkeys section inside the settings page

It may look complex at first, but it is really simple to use. Let me explain.

The dropdown menu on the top contains all of your configurations. From there, you can select the configuration for which you want to set a hotkey. The ADD HOTKEY Button on the top-right side then adds a hotkey entry.

(The dropdown menu and the ADD HOTKEY button)

After you add the hotkey, you can record the keys for it by clicking on the record button on the right side of the entry. Then, with the checkbox on the left side, you can enable/disable the hotkey.

(The hotkey entry containing the record/delete button and the checkbox to enable/disable the hotkey)

At this point, I guess you already know where to click to delete a hotkey :)

Also, there is one "Toggle all Panels" named hotkey, which cannot be deleted. This hotkey is quickly to toggle the visibility of the current panels on your desktop.

You are probably wondering why there are these brackets '[ ]' everywhere.
You may already know this, but DP allows you have multiple configurations with the same name.
The name inside the brackets is the name of the folder where the configuration resides.
Since the folder names must be unique, it is used in the brackets to make it easier to identify the configurations.

About the development:
Besides bug fixes and updates, I will now start implementing the Steam Workshop functionality.

The visuals (including the trailer video) on the shop page of DP are very old and mostly outdated. So I will now also take the time to replace them with better/newer ones.

Thanks again for using Desktop Panels.

Have a nice day.

Knakra

For Feedback please write a review.
For Bugs please use the Steam discussion board for Desktop Panels
For Feature and Idea requests please use my frill.co @ https://feedback.knakra.com

Original post

21 Jun 2021Developer post

Desktop Panels Update 1.17.0

Hello everyone, It's been a long time (and a tough time for me), but there it is - the next DP update, 1.17.0 Update Summary: News: - Added duplicate panel feature in Panel-Options - Added pin feature to pin panels on windows (Experimental, more information below) Updates: - New

Hello everyone,

It's been a long time (and a tough time for me), but there it is - the next DP update, 1.17.0

Update Summary:

News:
- Added duplicate panel feature in Panel-Options
- Added pin feature to pin panels on windows (Experimental, more information below)

Updates:
- New and more compact Panel-Options design
- Slow/Fast 60fps gif fix button is now merged into one.
- Flipped the Exit button horizontally as it did not look like an Exit button to some people :-)

NOTICE:
This is the first version of the pin feature. There is still stuff to implement and optimize. But as with every Early-Access title, this feature should be stable enough to use.

The pin feature (together with the new Panel-Options)

The duplicate function

The new Panel-Options is now more compact and generally looks better to the eye now.
The get information about what a button in there does, hover over it for some seconds. A tooltip will appear with a small description.

The duplicate function creates a duplicate panel in its current status.

As you can see, the pin features let you pin your panels to almost every window. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to pin panels to applications from the Windows Store.
It's because Windows currently does not allow access to the windows of the Windows Store. Even though it is technically possible, there is currently no legitimate way of doing it. But I am on it.

About the development:
In the last 2 months, I barely had time to work on DP because of my job and personal stuff.
In the last update post, I said that I am working on a makeover for the DP Website. Unfortunately, this will be delayed.

I also planned to make the full release in early Q3 of this year (Stated in the Early-Access Notes on the shop page), but this will be delayed too...

I try to make a full release happen before 2022.

Anyway, thanks again for using Desktop Panels.

Have a great day :D

Knakra

For Feedback please write a review.
For Bugs please use the Steam discussion board for Desktop Panels
For Feature and Idea requests please use my frill.co @ https://knakra.frill.co

Original post

09 Apr 2021Developer post

Desktop Panels Discount

Hi everyone, I remember when DP was just a single window. Without any extra features other than the main functionality. 3 months have passed now and I have made solid progress in the development. All the feedback and reviews I have received so far have kept me motivated during de

05 Apr 2021Developer post

Desktop Panels Update 1.16.0

Hello everyone, I just released DP Version 1.16.0 Update Summary: News: - New current Panels page to manage all Panels - New Click-Through feature in Panel-Options - New delete option in Panel-Options - New button for closing Panel-Options Updates: - General performance tweaks -

22 Mar 2021Developer post

Desktop Panels Update 1.15.0

Hello everyone, I just updated DP to Version 1.15.0 Update Summary: News: - New status bar at the bottom with the current Steam status - New Settings page - New Offline mode (Can be found on the settings page) Here is a gif to briefly visualize the update. The new status bar is v

07 Mar 2021Developer post

Desktop Panels Update 1.14.0

Hello everyone, I just released DP Version 1.14.0 Update Summary: News: - New opacity slider - Panels can now be locked - Always on Top function can now be toggled Updates: - Panel Options are now located at the top-right corner - Visual changes to Panel Options and the Popup men

22 Feb 2021Developer post

Desktop Panels Update 1.13.0

Hi, version 1.13.0 of Desktop Panels has just arrived. This update is a quite big one. Here is a short overview: New stuff: - New UI with Tabs (Home, Configurations, Info, Exit) - Feature to manage multiple Configurations (Saving, Loading, Saving as and Deleting) - Feature to cle

Hi,

version 1.13.0 of Desktop Panels has just arrived.

This update is a quite big one. Here is a short overview:

New stuff:
- New UI with Tabs (Home, Configurations, Info, Exit)
- Feature to manage multiple Configurations (Saving, Loading, Saving as and Deleting)
- Feature to clear all current panels (Usable per Tray menu or UI)
- Popup menu (aka. Context menu) for the Configurations

Updates:
- Better Tray and Taskbar Icons

Fixes:
- Fixed the issue where large gifs could not be loaded from a Configuration after saving.
- Fixed the issue where files could not be deleted after dropping into DP.

Here are some screenshots to visualize these:

The Home page

The Configuration Page:

This is the first version of the UI. So this may change in the future.
As the development continues, I also planned to add more features to the Configuration management itself.

You can also provide feedback or ideas for Desktop Panels (More information below)

About the development:

Planning the UI and implementing it with the combination of the feature to manage multiple Configurations took some time. First, there is the UI which of course needs a concept and makes its way through to the implementation. Then there is the entire mechanism of the save and load functionality. So basically these functions hang together which of course separately wouldn't make any sense at all.

As this project grows it is also important to keep the project structured and clean for further development.
So every once in a while a refactoring process is done which was also the case for DP for the first time. This process can also take some time but helps a lot when it comes to efficiency and performance.

Therefore this process is absolutely necessary because performance and efficiency are one of the major rules of the DP concept.

That's why it took some time for this update to come up - if you were curious.

About my current state:
I am very motivated to work on DP but sadly I have very limited time to do so.
With a full-time job, it is quite hard to code the same day where you already coded a lot.
Therefore I effectively use the weekends to make progress. As I take vacations from time to time I will use them for bigger attempts like refactoring.

Currently working on:
- Full offline feature.
- UI performance
- Sticky Panels
- more functions for panel-options (Like closing a panel will be there in the future)

While developing desktop Panels I also came up with even more ideas and features that will help to get Desktop Panels to its "Productivity Tool" state. I also would love to hear about your ideas and feedback.

For Feedback please write a review. I would love to read it.
For Bugs please use the Steam discussion board for Desktop Panels
For feature and idea requests please use my frill.co @ https://knakra.frill.co

Thanks again for using Desktop Panels. I hope you like this update.
Have a nice day :D

Knakra

Original post

19 Jan 2021Developer post

Desktop Panels Update 1.12.4

Hi, I just updated Desktop Panels (short DP) to Version 1.12.4. DP now works in the background. This means Steam can be shut down while DP is running in the background. Showing the UI will connect to Steam again. A full offline feature is in progress and planned for the release.

Updates & announcements