OT: Desktop Shell

Posted by Wes Perdue
Jun 4, 2007 at 09:16 PM

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
> >By the way, I’m interested in what you think of
>PageFour.
>

I’ve not yet spent enough time with it to have a strong opinion, but my first impression is very good. I’ve got an article to write, and intend to write it in PageFour. As the article has no deadline, I’ve not yet started working on it. Such is my life; it seems I only work on priority one items both at work and in my personal life anymore.

Once the article is done, I intend to start using PageFour for fiction: that may develop into a novel, but it’ll initially be backstory for a game long back-burnered.

> Thank you for the detailed reply. It is helpful to learn what others
> do. Here’s my situation: Being a software junkie, I have way too many
> applications installed on my machines (mostly my home machine, because
> I have a little more discipline at the office). But even though I have
> more applications installed than I use, there are several applications
> I need frequently. I don’t like using the Start button menu… too
> cumbersome, and I’ve tried limiting the number of icons in the quick
> launch bar (but maybe I should rethink this). So I’ve had icons all
> over my desktop. I do organize them, keeping application launch icons
> in one section, documents (usually items I’m currently accessing
> frequently at the moment—once I’m done with them I move them to other
> folders), and various folders. Recently I’ve just felt like this all is
> too much of a mess, so I’m hoping to find an application that helps me
> organize it a bit, keeping the desktop neat, but continuing to provide
> quick access.

It sounds like you need a program launcher of some type. I’ve no advice off the top of my head. I scanned my software evaluation database, and I didn’t find any relevant notes.

> I have found one nifty little program called Approach—
> when it is running, if you click on a folder and keep the button
> depress a few seconds, instead of the window opening, a small menu
> opens from which you can select. To make use of this, I created folders
> for each type of application I have (Writing Aids, Info Managers,
> Graphics, Office, Utilities), and put the application shortcuts in
> them. That seems to work okay, but I’m wondering if there’s a more
> elegant solution.

That does sound useful. I’d have a difficult time using it though, as I often have so many apps open I don’t want to dig down to the desktop.

My recommendation to you would be to find some way of putting them in the task bar. Maybe you could create one parent folder, put your current folders in it, and create a tool bar for it.

1. Right-click on the task bar -> toolbars -> new toolbar
2. Select the parent folder holding your subfolders.

That should create a toolbar on your taskbar (unlock the task bar to place it to your liking) that has flyouts of its contents. This worked on my Latitude D600 with XP Home, but has never worked on my D620 running XP Pro. I doubt it has anything to do with Home vs. Pro, but I never seriously tried to debug this. YMMV; I hope it works for you.

Regards,
Wes