Congratulations on DeskTask, Andre!

I've watched DT mature since 0.4 something, and now that it's released, I imagine you'll see a massive amount of downloads. Have you considered putting it up somewhere like Download.com?

I was going to submit a news article for you at Neowin.net, but decided it would be better for you to do it yourself, so here's the link: <a href="http://www.neowin.net/submitnews.php?action=help" target="_new" ref="nofollow">http://www.neowin.net/submitnews.php?action=help</a>

Neowin gets a huge amount of hits, and if the article is allowed, you'll get a link on their front page!

Finally, I would just like to make two cosmetic suggestions that I think will make DeskTask look truly professional:

1. Are you sure it's not possible to create a drop shadow like used on the desktop icons? It makes quite a difference, especially when an image is used for the background:

LEFT: Windows desktop-style drop shadow RIGHT: DT pixel shadow
Note it was just easier for me to apply the shadow to the icons as well, obviously there's no need for that.

2. I really think now is the time to get a professional icon artist to make you an icon that users can identify with DeskTask. The blue circle/arrow doesn't really suggest what DeskTask is for.

And now (sorry, am in constructive criticism mode!) I just thought of 2 small fixes:

3. The hyperlinks for Calendar & Task are only active when the cursor is over a letter - it would be nice if they were active when the cursor was anywhere over the rectangular section comprising the word. (Eg try clicking in between the legs of the letter "n")

4. The alignment of tasks with the prority symbol needs to be tweaked (compare the right-hand side in the above image to the example in the options dialog box).

Once again, top job on your application!

Cheers,
Lloyd

Hi,


Thanks for your comments


Yes, I will submit DeskTask to most software archives, including neowin (thanks for the link) when the final 1.0 is released.

I will not post it on Download.com because I think it's paid.


Thanks for your suggestion, it certainly looks better, no doubt about that, however at this time i don't know what kind of tweak can be done to archive this, I will have to investigate on this.


I like the circle icon, and it gives a nice feedback when refreshing. I don't need a professional artist to do the interface icons for me, mostly because I can do it and I will not pay someone to do the cosmetics parts of a freeware app ;)

I was thinking in changing the icon to something similar to Outlook Home, but I was afraid there could be issues with Microsoft.

Maybe I will change the Icon in the future, if you have ideias, you can certainly post here or contact me directly



Yes, this is the standard behavior, DeskTask is transparent, so even if the cursor is over the DeskTask window, if it's a transparent section, it's the desktop who is receiving notification for the mouse move/ mouse over. The only way to change this was having Tasks and Calendar Text with a non transparent background. I took note of this, but I don't think that it will be changed.


I Plan to improve the alignment of the Icons, particularly by using smaller icons, however it's not probable that they will be much improved in the final 1.0 release.

Thanks for your comments,

André Santos
Carthago Software Support
http://www.carthagosoft.net