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HoverDesk is the "mature" version of Thibaud's old NextView product. Thibaud wrote HoverDesk to expand the functionality of NV and create a user friendly software that incorporated many the visual and customizing options that shell replacement users enjoy.
HoverDesk is shareware because it represents thousands of man-hours of love and labor. We believe there is a market for inexpensive shareware products that enable the user to customize the desktop as thouroughly as HoverDesk.
First was NextView. In 1997, I began to code NextView (NV) because I was a big fan of the NeXT OS. NV was basically a dock-style app with a taskbar replacement (like the NeXT/ WindowMaker dock eg. icons in 48*48 / groups etc.).
At its first beginning, I made NV just for me & a friend. He told me "why don't you put it on the Net?" so I did. I had to manage both NV coding, helpfile, installation file & website. At this time, NV was a freeware app.
I received a lot of positives emails about that app and quickly became overloaded by all users suggestions/coding/website management
One day, as NV was taking me too much time, I asked ppl for some help : website / graphics / helpfile / icons ... but couldn't find any help :-(
So, in order to reduce the amount of messages & work on NV, I only had 2 solutions :
Stop NV and continue it only for me
Make NV as a shareware, like that, I would be sure that ppl who registered NV would help me <g>
I made the second choice. My policy was : if someone is registering NV, then it will be a lifetime registration fee.
In 1999, I decided to totally re-write NV as I was not fully satisfied of it (for ex, there was only a main vertical dock with horizontal subgroups / no transparency support / no popup menu / no plugins ..) I was really in love with the NeXT OS and I was still trying to reproduce a WindowMaker app for Windows.
So I began to work on HvD. As I wanted to gratefully thank ppl who help me with NV (registering it), I decided to let HvD as a shareware. HvD is more powerful than NV so I couldn't put it as a freeware regarding the kind ppl who supported NV since its beginning. That's why all NV registered users got a free registration for HvD and this is the main reason why HvD is a shareware.
I'm the co-author / co-copyright holder. Besides being the chief Alpha tester, I handle much of the customer support, registration and graphics issues. I create and maintain the help files and distribute the beta and release versions. The creation of new features and ideas is a shared effort that we both enjoy.
Because HvD includes full transparency support, I wanted to have a totally new theme for HvD which was different from the NeXT ones (too many of them). I got bored of the NeXT style (though I still like it) so I wanted to have a very different one. I wrote Russ and asked him if he could make a theme for HvD. He kindly gave me a positive answer with some suggestions to make HvD skinning better. Russ made me a wonderful theme and during our exchanges he began to give me more & more ideas. As Russ was offering me his help (ideas/debugging/help file/website/comments etc..), it became natural for me to include him as a co-author / co-copyright holder of HvD.
Russ is since a long time now, totally integrated in the HvD project and I must say that HvD wouldn't be what it is now without him. Working with Russ is a real pleasure but the most important thing I've earned working with him is his friendship.
I'd also like to thank ppl who are not in the copyright but who are contributing a lot for HvD : Johanne CHAINE aka Alexandrie (HvD website), Edwin HEIJBOER aka Eddepet (IRC) Mark Mc QUILLAN aka Hippy & John HUGUES aka Honz12 (HvD Messageboard). And of course, thanks to all ppl supporting HvD and creating some really stunning themes for it !
The key notion of HoverDesk is a combination of visual and technical tweaks to the user interface that allows the user to create a truly unique desktop environment. It is our goal to create what might be termed a "painless LiteStep". To allow the user limitless flexibility in their computing environment while retaining full use of the Explorer shell.
HvD is a full desktop replacement : it includes launch bars, taskbar replacement, start menu replacement. HvD is fully customizable (via drag'n'drop) and has a full transparency support /Plugins Support. Doing a theme for HvD is really easy as well as installing a new one. HvD is becoming closer to what I wanted to make with NV (eg. WindowMaker app style) but of course, more is coming too :)
Our short term plans include creating additional modules to extend HvD's functionality. Our next big hurdle is to create a version of HoverDesk that can be run as a complete shell replacement for those who enjoy working outside the constraints of the Explorer shell.
Hehe, that's a kind of secret ... but of course, HvD is not finished and we still have a lot of ideas to implement and make it more powerful. HvD is a 1 year old project now, so we can say that it's still at its beginning ...
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