Using Stardock Tiles

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 by Island Dog | Discussion: Personal Computing

Tiles is one of the newest apps from Stardock that lets you take control of windows and running applications on your Windows desktop.  Tiles places a customizable sidebar on the edge of your screen where you can view and interact with applications running.  There are a bunch of options and configurations for Tiles that lets it work the way you want it to, making organization easy to do.

One of the ways I personally use Tiles is to use it a “virtual” desktop.  I have several pages configured for common applications I use daily.  For instance, I have a page for Office documents, one for web browsers, and another for e-mail clients.  Usually with several applications running at the same time for each page, this can easily create a very crowded desktop.  With Tiles though, I configure it to minimize and restore windows when pages are switched.  When I switch to my Office page, all the windows in the Office page restore to the desktop.  Switch to another page and those minimize and bring up the windows on the other page. 

Here’s a quick video to show an example.

Another favorite use is just using it to switch applications.  The Windows task bar isn’t bad, but unless you hover your mouse over an icon, you are limited to just seeing the icon representing an open window.  Tiles gives you a live preview of the open window which is especially good when you have multiple windows open from the same application.  Of course, you can customize Tiles to show icons, captions, etc. to give as much (or as little) information as you want.

These are just a couple of examples of how you can use Tiles to help manage your desktop.  Tiles has a bunch of configuration options that lets you adjust Tiles to your workflow.

Get Tiles - https://www.stardock.com/products/tiles/

Elsius Saint
Reply #1 Wednesday, February 15, 2012 11:04 AM

I tried it and I must say it's a very uselful program. But I don't want anything to occupy space on my desktop. If only we could hide it like we hide Objectdock, then I would install it again.

ZubaZ
Reply #2 Wednesday, February 15, 2012 11:07 AM

Elsius Saint
I tried it and I must say it's a very uselful program. But I don't want anything to occupy space on my desktop. If only we could hide it like we hide Objectdock, then I would install it again.

Elsius Saint
Reply #3 Wednesday, February 15, 2012 11:12 AM

Very nice Zubaz

Very good program

Snowman
Reply #4 Wednesday, March 7, 2012 11:33 PM

How to 'unhide' it again?

I tried this option a couple of weeks ago, but couldn't find any obvious way to make it reappear again.
Had to uncheck the hide option in the config.

Scrofulous1
Reply #5 Wednesday, March 7, 2012 11:44 PM

I use Tiles and really like it.

Is there a way to change the color of the text (without editing the TileSkin file)?

if not, is that an option that is being considered? 

Snowman
Reply #6 Thursday, March 8, 2012 12:23 AM

Scrofulous1

Is there a way to change the color of the text (without editing the TileSkin file)?

Nope. This is, so far only specified by the skin.

pacov
Reply #7 Friday, March 9, 2012 2:37 PM

I just picked this up and am using it at work.  SUPER USEFUL TOOL.  Thanks devs!  I really like the store integration.  I was grumbling for about 2 seconds when I realized that I wanted to have the option to have the dock on my other monitor and saw no way to move it.  Then I saw I had to pay $1.99 for the feature.  Then I reminded myself that my total cost for a great tool is $1.99.  I have no complaints.  Anyway, great store integration and an extremely reasonable price to pay for what I needed.  Great job!

ZubaZ
Reply #8 Friday, March 9, 2012 3:44 PM

pacov
I just picked this up and am using it at work.  SUPER USEFUL TOOL.  Thanks devs!  I really like the store integration.  I was grumbling for about 2 seconds when I realized that I wanted to have the option to have the dock on my other monitor and saw no way to move it.  Then I saw I had to pay $1.99 for the feature.  Then I reminded myself that my total cost for a great tool is $1.99.  I have no complaints.  Anyway, great store integration and an extremely reasonable price to pay for what I needed.  Great job!

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