OT: Desktop Shell

Posted by Wes Perdue
Jun 4, 2007 at 06:59 PM

Steve,

Do you mean you’re considering replacing the application that manages your desktop and task bar (where the start menu lives)? In Unix, that’s more or less the window manager (Gnome, KDE, etc. and their various skins/themes). In Windows, that’s rather a niche market. I looked into it a number of months ago, but decided against it—I felt it was too far from mainstream for my taste. I’ll try to scan my notes a bit later today for any leads that might be helpful to you.

In the meantime, I hope a description of my desktop might prove helpful.

I try to keep my desktop clean and simple; I’ve only got four folder links, two app shortcuts, and two document links on the desktop. I limit myself to these maximums. The four folders are Recycle Bin, files, more apps, and my Windows Mobile My Documents. Files contains symlinks (um, shortcuts) to commonly used locations, and used to exist as a task bar toolbar; I realize now it’s abandoned, and should be deleted. More apps contains links to apps that aren’t on my quick launch bar, are used occasionally, and are difficulty to find in Start -> All Programs. The two app shortcuts are to apps (currently PageFour and IdeaMason) I’m evaluation for inclusion on the quick launch bar. The two documents are miscellaneous “to be read” items that have no place in UltraRecall or Surfulater.

I use a two-unit-high task bar at the bottom of the screen. The upper half contains the overpopulated quick launch bar and ClipMate QuickBar. I use the quick launch bar and the five soft-assignable keys on my MS keyboards for all of my commonly used apps. The quick launch bar is organized by frequency of use: Thunderbird and Firefox are on the left, followed by my file manager (xplorer2), text editors (including EditPad), and CLI stuff (cmd and putty); the PIMS are in the middle. Graphics, photo, and music apps fill out the visible area; secondary programs cascade up the screen as necessary by clicking on the >> icon.

The bottom half of the task bar contains the currently running programs and the Windows Desktop Search bar, a vestige of my long eval of OneNote 2007 (which I eventually uninstalled); I realize it’s another item that should probably go, as I don’t use it.

The only other prominent part of my desktop is my collection of (currently) three Notezilla notes. I try to keep thee from proliferating as well.

I feel the Windows desktop, while not terribly elegant, is rather robust and quite flexible. Keeping it uncluttered requires discipline, but I’ve found it quite manageable.

I hope you find this helpful; I enjoyed writing it.

Regards,
Wes