Desktop Thread

[votblindub]

i changed mine to this

[Deacon]

Peter Jackson missed the opportunity, so someone on SA did it for him. Linked for the same reason as Lucksi.

[Arc Orion]

Trying out SharpE and felt like showing it off - it looks pretty, but I'll have to give it time to decide if it's worth continued use.

[Deacon]

So...what is it? A shell replacement for Vista?

[bagheadinc]

Not exclusively for Vista.

[Arc Orion]

Yeah, the machine I'm running it on right now is using XP.

[Deacon]

Perhaps this should be taken to another thread, but...why? What benefits does it bring?

[bagheadinc]

I've not used SharpE, but most shell replacements offer a ton of benefits. There is the obvious ability to customize the look, but most allow you to extend the shell with widgets or gadgets or whatever they want to call them.

In Arc's case, look at the top bar. It has various quick links, a command line box, CPU / RAM stats, WMP controls, a notes area, and 4 desktop workspaces. Also there is the SharpE menu, which replaces the default right click context menu on the desktop.

[Arc Orion]

It looks nice and I it gives some nice options for shell modification. It also has a decent scripting interface, so if I ever decide to not be lazy, I can add features to it. One in particular that I'd like to add is to integrate XMplay into it. It also adds support for virtual desktops and it uses a menu interface similar to BB4Win's (right click background to get menu), which is something I prefer. Mostly, it's something I haven't tried before, and I like trying new things.

[Deacon]

Cool. I checked it out, and it seems like it has some potential, but it's not really "there" as far as the methodology of customization (not easy enough to snap things in and out and position them as desired), and it locks the taskbar down to either the top or bottom of the screen, and I very much prefer it to be vertical along the left hand size of the screen (and autohidden), so for now I've switched back.

[bagheadinc]

You should look into litestep. It lets you customize everything and has a ton of add-in modules.

[Arc Orion]

Litestep is excellent. I'd actually be using that, except I always find myself tinkering with config files for hours on end to get just what I want.

[iMav]

Shamelessly plucked from a similar thread on SA:


Bigger / Source

[Deacon]

How very goth of you

[iMav]

*not goth