snkchnb needs no introduction. Was there in the beginning of the 2000s, when Blackbox for Windows came to be, keeping documents and helping out.
He followed up with lots of great styles, creating his own style site, and co-administering boxshots and lostinthebox, the two legendary Blackbox for Windows sites. He is always eager to help and a good friend.
This is what he remembers from those halcyon days:
snk 8 Distress.jpg 619.97KB 1 downloads
[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"]When I came around bb4win was already in its infancy. I don't remember
exactly when it was but it had to have been between versions 0.0.60 and
0.0.80 (respectively 2002-09-07 and 2003-01-10 according to the
sourceforge repositories). I hit the IRC channel early on and back then
it was pretty active from everyone involved. There was always a friendly
greeting for the regulars, plenty of support for anyone if there were
issues (by devs as well as experienced users) and usually an announcement
before new builds went up.. sometimes even test builds (especially if they
were bug fixes). I was amazed when I came around to see the amount of
communication from the developers and other contributors.[/font]
Bluecurvesnk 1.jpg 81.92KB 1 downloads
[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"]Everyone seemed to be excited about the project. The further it developed
more people showed up and it just kept fueling itself and getting more
momentum.[/font]
My personal feeling on when/where things really took off was in June 2003
when xoblite was featured on "The Screensavers" on TechTV
(https://www.youtube....h?v=lk7SukjjD2o). When that episode aired
bb4win.org, boxshots.org, my site and probably many other style artists
were hit hard. Visitation shot up tremendously for quite awhile and we
got a whole new group of people that have hung around since.
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[font="calibri, sans-serif;"]When did you start your acquaintance with Blackbox?[/font]
[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"] It all started back around 2002/2003 while I was going for my Associates
degree. I had used litestep in years prior and stumbled upon a blackbox
theme for it. While trying to find different "styles" for it I came
across BB4Win and I was sold.[/font]
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[font="calibri, sans-serif;"]What was/is your contribution (developing builds/plugings, sites, styles)?[/font]
[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"]I had a couple different hats when it came to BB4Win. I can't remember
specifics of when/how things took place but initially I started creating
styles. Soon after I joined the scene I ended up rewriting and adding to
the project's documentation and ended up becoming a co-maintainer of
crackmonkey.us, which later became boxshots.org, as well as admin on the
lostinthebox forums.[/font]
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[font="calibri, sans-serif;"]What are the main advantages/disadvantages of the shell?[/font]
[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"]- Advantages: Everything; configurability and customization are key.
- Disadvantages: I don't think there really are any. I haven't ran
bb4win/xoblite/bblean in 8+ years since switching to Linux full time.[/font]
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[font="calibri, sans-serif;"]What do you think is lacking?[/font]
[font="arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"]From what I remember when using it there really wasn't anything that it
was missing. Pretty much if there wasn't something that was built into
the shell itself a plugin could be used.[/font]
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What do you think of the shell and the community today?
Like I had mentioned earlier I haven't used BB4Win or a fork thereof in
a number of years. There is always need for customization. Windows
itself has/will never ever be perfect for everyone and alternate shells
give an end user the ability to adjust their interface to the way they
would like.
Not being in the alternative shell scene for a number of years it's really
hard to say without doing some research. Towards the later part of my
time while using BB4Win/xoblite the scene seemed to be dying. As long as
there is a need for alternative shells I believe the community will be
there.
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