Write a useful, well-liked piece of software

so the app’s getting there.

the domain name is registered, the gui is looking good and the feedback is all encouraging.

so i have a nice graphics application i wrote in an afternoon. it makes pretty pictures. but the user interface is rubbish. the point was to write an application in afternoon. that bit worked.

i spent a while using windows forms to make it better. it looked better and supported more modes. but was still ugly.

i spent a while using sdldotnet to make it better. it didn’t play nice with windows forms. so it was still ugly.

i spent a while using gdi+ to make it better. the transparency stuff appears to have been kludged in (didn’t, like, VB3 support transparent backgrounds for labels? gah!). so it’s still ugly.

i spent last night going back to my managed directx sdk. and lo! there appears to be all the support i need for custom controls, alpha composited canvases, proper resampling and transforms and playing nice with windows forms. why didn’t i think of it earlier (thunk)

still. i’d normally have given up by now. so that’s good :D

my day job arguably produces useful, well-liked pieces of software. i want to make something of my own that meets these criteria.

doesn’t have to be fancy, just complete.