I stumbled across Lee-Soft’s ViGlance application today. It’s a Windows 7 style taskbar for Windows Vista/XP, and it looks like it’s going to be a great utility when it’s a bit more mature.

However, I was struck by how familiar the website looked. A little digging into the page source confirmed my suspicions: the developer, Lee Chantrey, has copied our old website design wholesale, right done to the CSS files and HTML layout (although to give him credit he’s managed to cram numerous Google Ads in there too).

While I’m flattered that someone thought enough of the design to steal it, that still doesn’t make it right.

Lee seems like a good guy, and he’s doing a great service bringing Windows 7 features to Vista/XP for free. Copying another website seems out of character for someone so generous. So Lee, how about doing the right thing and letting people know where you took the design from?

Update 1: Lee has contacted me and communicated his apologies. His site template was designed by someone else and he was unaware it was lifted from our site. He’s added a “Design by Otaku Software” message to the footer of each page on his site.

Update 2: Sigh. After being accused of making “vague accusations” I’ve uploaded pictures of our old web site to make it completely clear: Lee-Soft is using our design. The colors are different, but the HTML and CSS are the same. What I’d also like to make clear is that this situation has been amicably resolved, and we’ve given Lee-Soft permission to continue using our design.