In the past week I’ve written about the new Enhanced File Dialog utility, as well as the updates we’ve made to Keyboard Launchpad in advance of the release of Object Desktop 2007, coming tomorrow (Tuesday, August 1st). Today, with less than 24 hours before the official launch of ODNT 2007, I’d like to take the time to walk you through some of the other products that have received some new features and a great deal of polish.

Click on the links below to go straight to that section of the article...

Theme Manager 2.3
Object Desktop Launchpad 2.0
Stardock Virtual Desktops 2.0

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Theme Manager 2.3

Theme Manager is the keystone application in the Object Desktop 2007 suite. Like in previous versions, Theme Manager acts as the centralized management and switching point for pretty much all of your customized content. Instead of loading WindowBlinds to apply a skin, IconPackager to switch your icon set, BootSkin to change your boot screen, CursorXP to change your cursor etc, you can just fire up Theme Manager and select which visual element you want to change from the menu on the left. You’ll even seen a preview of what you’re about to apply, so there’s no more guess work as to how something is going to look before you load it on your PC.

There are three ways to get to the Theme Manager:

1. Click on the "SUITES" button on the Object Desktop Launchpad (2.0, more on that further down)
2. Launch Theme Manager from within Stardock Central
3. Right click on your desktop, select properties, click on the Suites tab, and then select "Run Theme Manager" from the drop-down on the bottom of the window.

Theme Manager saves you a lot of time when you want to quickly change the visual elements of your UI. Just download and install any icon pack, WindowBlind, DesktopX theme etc. and it will be available to you via this utility.

For more information on Theme Manager, check out the product information page, here.

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Object Desktop Launchpad 2.0

Most of our users launch our programs via Stardock Central, our all-in-one application management/support tool that hooks you into just about everything we do from Object Desktop to TotalGaming.net, our websites and our online chat. However, in an attempt to make it easier for users who just want easy access to their Object Desktop applications, we present the new version of the Object Desktop Launchpad. On the new launchpad, the applications have been divided into three categories:

1. Personalize
   Launch the applications used to apply customized content to your computer. Theme Manager, WindowBlinds, IconPackager and DesktopX can be launched from this tab.

2. Create
   These are the applications that you use to create the customized content. Icon Developer, SkinStudio and DesktopX Builder are here.

3. Extend
   This is where you can find the utilities and enhancement tools included with Object Desktop. Applications like RightClick, Keyboard Launchpad, Enhanced File Dialog, Virtual Desktops and WindowFX.

Of course, you can still get to Stardock Central if you want the more powerful tools, that can be reached by clicking on the "Updates" button up top.

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Stardock Virtual Desktops 2.0

A feature that Linux users have enjoyed for years is the virtual desktop; the ability to sort applications and windows between multiple desktop areas, reducing the visual clutter on any one desktop. Stardock Virtual Desktops 2.0 brings that functionality to Windows users, and there's one way our product beats the pants off of what you see by default on any Linux distribution: Stardock Virtual Desktops separates the taskbar icons. Each desktop has it's own desktop space and its own taskbar space. This means you can have multiple web browser windows open across multiple desktops, and not get confused over which window goes with each desktop.

Some other nice features:

• You can quickly grab windows and applications from inactive desktops and bringing them to your active one by right-clicking on the virtual desktop space on the task bar and selecting the item you want to move.
• Each desktop can have its own background image.
• Fully compatible with WindowBlinds and other Object Desktop enhancements.
• Add as many desktops as you like and use keyboard shortcuts to easily switch between them

Stardock Virtual Desktops 2.0 is a component of Object Desktop 2007.

For more information on Stardock Virtual Desktops, check out the product information page, here.

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These are just some of the applications that are receiving updates to go along with the Object Desktop 2007 launch this week. As always, expect even more improvements to these and all of the Object Desktop applications over the next year.

In addition to these program update articles, look for more in-depth application profiles in the future. It's just a piece of the content build-up for WinCustomize 2007!

Windows is full of various keyboard shortcuts to do any number of different tasks and functions.  There's the standard copy, paste, cut, open and close shortcuts that almost everyone is familiar with, but what if you could have a keyboard command to play a sound, or open a specific application?  If that's the case, then ObjectDesktop.net has yet another program you'd probably want to check out; Keyboard Launchpad (KLP).

Keyboard Launchpad is a program that allows you to quickly and easily assign hot keys to launch programs, visit URLs, past saved clipboards, control individual programs, perform system commands and more.  With a quick keystroke you could launch your Instant Messenger application, another could take you to your favorite blog site, while another could load up your MP3 collection in your favorite player.

There are two ways to build a keyboard shortcut in Keyboard Launchpad.  First, you could open the KLP configuration screen by double-clicking on the icon in your system tray, and that will allow you to both add new shortcuts or modify existing ones.  The other way is to right click on an icon, select properties and then clicking on the Hotkey tab. 

If you go into the more powerful Configuration screen, you can build hotkeys that include multiple actions.  There are a total of 9 types of actions you can assign, and a single hotkey can take an unlimited number.  So you could have a hotkey built to execute a dozen applications, a handful of system commands, open a few URLs, simulate a few mouse clicks and play some music if you wanted to.

The 9 action types are...

• Link (Shortcut or URL)
  Execute any application, file or URL.
• Clipboard Snippet
  Store a copied image or section of text in a hotkey.  Very useful if you find yourself often having to paste something like a corporate logo or contact information into documents or emails.  The snippet stored in the command remains even if you clear your clipboard or go to copy something else in another program.
• System Command
  Execute a number of standard system commands such as Shutdown, Empty Recycle Bin, Eject CD etc...
• WinAmp Controller
  Use hotkeys to manipulate WinAmp.
• Time Delay
  For hotkeys with a long set of actions, you can build in time delays between actions.  This could be useful if you have an Internet Connect hotkey that dials in to an ISP, waits for the connection to establish, then executes all of your favorite Internet applications.  Time specified in milliseconds.
• KLPlayer
  Just like the WinAmp controls, only for KLPlayer.
• Mouse Click Simulator
  A feature for those with hand/wrist problems and can't click a mouse button, it will simulate either a right, left or middle mouse button click at the current position of the mouse pointer.
• Musicmatch Jukebox Controller
  Just like the WinAmp controls, only for Musicmatch Jukebox.
• Windows Media Player Controller
  Just like the WinAMp controls, only for WMP.

For the power user, this means you can further tune exactly what you have running on your machine.  As a gamer, I want to have as little running on my machine as possible, and I also appreciate a system that can load windows as fast as possible.  Keyboard Launchpad helps me towards this goal by allowing me to strip out almost every application that loads when Windows first starts up.  I can, with a few keystrokes, bring up any subset of programs I want.  So if I plan on doing nothing but gaming, I'll only load the graphics and sound card utilities.  If I'm going to be working on an article like this one, or doing any other sort of office work, I'd load up my standard set of work utilities such as Google Desktop, KeepSafe, Instant Messenger etc...

While a very simple program, it adds a great deal of utility to your system.  It can be much faster to execute programs, navigate folders and issue system commands than by hunting and clicking with your mouse.  Using more keyboard commands can also potentially help cut down on RSI you might experience through excessive mouse clicking.

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A few of the great new features added into the 1.50 release for Object Desktop 2007:

• The "Hotkey" tab from the properties menu
• Added "Close CD-Drive" to system actions
• Actions now execute from top of listing to bottom (first added to last added)
• Added the Time-Delay action. 
• Bundling of WMP, MusicMatch and "Mouse Clicker" plugins
• Sample plugin source (SDK) added.

Ever wish that when you were going to open or save a file that you had a few more options to choose from?  Do you find the standard open/save dialogs difficult to read when there are a dozen or more files listed?  Coming to the rescue of frustrated users everywhere, Stardock presents the Enhanced File Dialog utility, a product included with ObjectDesktop.net that brings power and user customization to yet another aspect of the Windows Operating System.

Enhanced File Dialog is an application enhancement utility that replaces the standard Microsoft Windows file open/save dialog screens with a much more feature-rich interface.  It improves the usability of possibly the most used dialog screens in the entire operating system by giving you items such as a Recent Folders drop-down, an easier to read file list, an application quick-launch bar, a search button and a customizable sidebar to add your favorite folders to for quick and easy navigation.

Compare these two screenshots showing the file open dialog at first glance:

At first glance, the most obvious improvements are in the file list.  In the classic view, files are listed as Name + Extension (i.e. document.rtf) and there are no sort options or visual divisions between items in the list.  The second picture showing the enhanced dialog looks more like the detailed view you would see in Windows Explorer, breaking the file list down into columns such as Name, Size, Type and Date Modified.  This view can help eliminate guess work when trying to figure out which version of a file you want to be working on.  No more guess work on whether it's Q1Financials_a.doc or Q1Financials_b.doc that you need to be working on when you can clearly see that one of the files is from last year.  Also, to make it easier to read all of the additional data provided, the file list is divided by grid lines.

If you take a closer look at the two screenshots, you'll see three additional differences in the enhanced dialog:

• Recent Folders list
• Enhanced Sidebar
• Quick Launch Bar
  • Search
  • Enhanced Dialog Settings
  • Application Quick-launch buttons

The "Recent Folders" list is a drop-down menu that will show you some of the most recently access folders.  This makes it easier for users who are working in multiple applications save related files together.  For example, a web designer may want to save an web page file and some images to the same folder.  Both the graphics editing and web page editing applications likely have their own default save locations that will pop up when opening the save dialog.  Once you've saved within one of your applications, you can then select that folder from the Recent Folders list when saving from the other application.  Saving the user the time and trouble of digging through countless folders to reach a folder they've already recently worked in. 

The enhanced sidebar adds several more options over the standard one.  Instead of having to go to My Documents to reach folders such as My Music and My Pictures, they're included in the list.  Additionally, through the settings menu, or by simply dragging and dropping onto the sidebar, the user can add any folder they like to the list.  A student who stores all their class papers on F:\My Papers\ could add that to the sidebar and make the open/save process much easier. 

Finally, the Quick Launch bar gives you three primary functions:

1. Search.
   If you want to search for a file within a given directory, you can browse to it via the open/save dialog and launch the search utility via the magnifying glass.  It will default to searching that folder.
    
2. Enhanced Dialog Settings.
   There are a number of settings the user can change to suit their needs.  This is where you can add applications to the application launch bar, custom folders to the enhanced sidebar, as well as specify which applications you do not want to use Enhanced Dialogs, or alternately specify applications you want to especially force to use it.  Additionally, it will save dialog window sizes for applications that have a habit of defaulting to a very small dialog window.
   
   Please note: some applications like Microsoft Office do not use standard file dialogs and will not be extended by Enhanced File Dialog.
    
3. Application Launch Bar
   This is just like the Quick Launch bar you can enable on the Windows taskbar.  You can add application shortcuts to this bar through the settings.

	Quick Launch Bar
	Recent Folders List
	Enhanced Sidebar

 

While a small tool in scope, Enhanced File Dialog brings a great deal of power and flexibility to a key piece of every Windows application.  If you've customized your desktop with WindowBlinds, modified your context menus through Right Click, and built yourself a replacement Taskbar with DesktopX and ObjectDock, then why not dig in and improve your file dialogs too with Enhanced File Dialog!

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Some additional screenshots of the utility settings:

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. What I think is trash, you might think treasure. The cliches go on and on, but that doesn't make them any less true. And at a site like WinCustomize, that subjective taste really comes to the forefront when people rate and comment on submitted skins, icons and other items.

Of course, there are some things that almost everyone recognizes as high quality. Skins like eminence and Jaluran seem to be enjoying pretty wide-spread acceptance by the community, at least judging by the number of downloads and comments. But what is it about these two skins, which are very different in general style, that everyone likes so much? Personal tastes aside, what makes a skin, an icon, a theme etc. "good"?

Currently, I'm running eminence by rjsmith2007 for my blind, and Mormegil's Apogee icon suite. Hippy's Magic 8 Ball often graces my desktop and I have ObjectDock Plus running with the standard skin (because I can't find a good one for it). All of the enhancements I actually run on my system tend to be of the clean/minimalist style. Soft, clean edges, nothing extra/unnecessary generally. That's the style I like. But then again, I love MikeB314's Old Republic skin, which is generally a lot busier than I usually like.

What is it about these different skins? Is it their clean and well drawn graphics? Is it the interesting placement of borders? Is it the color schemes that do it?

What do YOU think are the essential elements to any skin, icon, theme etc? What separates the OK from the great? What are the things you always look for in the content you download?

 

One of the age old questions in computer customization is what looks good?

This is a skin I've been using. Yea, it has gigantic borders and it's not nearly as usable as many other skins. But for me...It's fun. It's neat. It's different.

In the old days, a skin like this would slow my computer way down. But as software such as WindowBlinds gets better and hardware gets faster, there's really no penalty anymore. You really have the freedom to do some weird stuff with your computer.

I also wonder how many WindowBlinds users remember to take advantage of the fact that you can change the color and gamma of a skin so that even if the original author makes a skin too light or too dark or just a strange color that you can change it.

Now if only I could find a matching ObjectDock skin.

 

 

I dig gadgets. I really do.

Well, okay, I lie. As someone who has DesktopX installed, I think objects are vastly inferior to widgets. I see the plus of objects not needing DX installed, blah, blah, blah. But for those of us who have DesktopX already, gadgets just really, really suck. Oh, and as an aside, it would appear I feel like whining today.

Why do I think gadgets are inferior to widgets? There are a number of reasons:

1) They don't auto-install. A small point, sure, but a point nonetheless. If I download a widget, open the zip file and double click, the widget runs AND drops itself in my Widgets folder. It is all about convenience, and in my sloth I can't tell you how many gadgets never stayed on my system because I double clicked from the zip, then closed the zip, only to realize I didn't manually extract that gadget somewhere.

2) They don't respond to F9 and F10. This is huge for me. Widgets responding to these keys (either to bring to the front or to hide completely) was actually the functionality that got me to finally use DesktopX. I don't like lots of things cluttering my desktop, so I love being able to hit F10 and make them all go away. And when I want to change the song, see the temp, date, news bit, etc. I love to be able to hit F9 and have my widgets come to the front. With gadgets I have to manually bring it to the front, or minimize all my other windows. Again, a HUGE step back in terms of convenience when it comes to gadgets vs. widgets.

3) You can't customize them. Heck, this is WinCUSTOMIZE, so this should be a no brainer. There are a number of widgets that I have downloaded, imported, looked at their scripts and then changed something small, or changed a font, a color, or an image, to make the widget behave a little more how I would like. All for personal use, of course. But the fact that I can't import a gadget, tweak it a little to make it fit my personal style a bit more, or even get scripting ideas, means they are far inferior to widgets IMO.

Again, I understand the reason behind gadgets. But I don't understand the reasoning behind only releasing the gadgets over here at Wincustomize.com. Isn't that what DesktopGadgets.com is for? It is a shame to head to the WIDGET section, only to seem some nice, new toy is actually a castrated widget (aka gadget).

Bring on the "shut up and make it yourself" bitch-slaps.

I've shown friends my beta of Windows Vista and they love the clean look, the glass UI, the dark Start bar.

But I wonder how they'll feel about it say a month after they've been using it.  As I've begun to mess around with the betas more and more, the sexiness starts to wear off and my desire to personalize my experience for my own preferences returns.

What looks like glass at first starts to just be a bitmap that's at 20% opacity with a blur effect on it.  Sure, I can change the opacity or the color but essentially, from a customization point of view, Windows Vista is actually a step back from Windows XP in some ways in my opinion.  Even XP users could hack uxtheme.dll and apply hacked msstyles to their system.  This time, the story isn't quite the same. Now, at best, you'll have someone hacking bitmaps to replace the border and button PNGs/BMPs with another and even then, what do you do about things like Office 2007 which are literally hard-coded.

My prediction is that skinning, which has been steadily growing in popularity to the point of being mainstream (which has not been completely good news for skin sites -- as skinning becomes mainstream, cottage sites become less needed), will take a new turn with the demand increasing even further.

I think WindowBlinds and other Stardock programs will likely see real competitors because the demand for customization will grow much higher.

And I haven't even touched on Microsoft's gadgets which are definitely going to need third party help to be viable IMO.  As it stands now, the Microsoft gadget platform is in desperate need of third party attention to expand what developers can do easily so that worthwhile content can be made.  DesktopX 4 will likely step up to the plate when it's released but I think you'll see a whole cottage industry for that.

But what do you think? Do you think Vista will be good for skinning or do you think the cool, clean look of Vista will be enough?

 

Skin Roundup

Christmas Edition

Since Christmas is coming soon I thought I would use this weeks "Skin Roundup" to highlight some of the most popular Christmas and Holidays skins here on Wincustomize.

 

Realistic Animated Christmas Snowflakes

This is supposed to be updated soon, but just in case you couldn't wait.  I think this is the one of the coolest objects available.  It's amost a necessity for any winter desktop. Be sure to stop by Greenreapers gallery for more great skins.

Greenreapers WC page - https://www.wincustomize.com/info.aspx?acid=2172

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/Preview.aspx?Source=GreenReaper/dx/3762.jpg

 

 

 

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Christmas Lights

Here are Christmas Lights I created because I love putting up Christmas lights on my house.  So why not the desktop as well?  These come in a .zip which has 4 different sets.  Just right-click and clone to "string" them to your desktop.

Island Dog's WC page - http://islanddog.wincustomize.com

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SkinID=3768&LibID=3

 

 

 

 

 

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X-Mas (weather)

Richard Mohler has update this weather object for the Holidays.  I especially like the font that is used and it fits great into your Holiday desktop.

Richard Mohler's WC page - http://rmskins.wincustomize.com/

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=655&LibID=34&comments=1

 

 

 

 

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Christmas Time

This is my personal favorite WB for Christmas.  With almost 300,000 downloads I would have to say others might agree also.  If you are looking for a Christmas WB then you have to check this one out.

moregemil's WC page - http://mormegil.wincustomize.com/

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=3702&LibID=1&comments=1

 

 

 

 

 

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Winter Blue

Here is another great Holiday WB by don5318.  The "snow" is enough for me to put this on my desktop.  This WB goes great with the animated snowflakes to make a real Winter desktop.

Don5318's WC page - http://don5318.wincustomize.com/

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=4710&LibID=1

 

 

 

 

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S@nt@ Cl@us

Lgp85 has created this cursor set for the Christmas skinning contest.  The graphics are very detailed and a lot of work was put into these.

Lpg85's WC page - http://lgp85.wincustomize.com/

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=1722&LibID=25&comments=1

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Christmas Holidays

Here is a great iconpackager set created by adni18.  Great detail was put into these and fits great into the Christmas holiday.

Adni18's WC page - http://adni18.wincustomize.com/

Download - https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=1081&LibID=2&comments=1

 

 

 

 

 

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There are many more Christmas and Holiday skins available.  Just search the Wincustomize galleries and you find many to choose from. 

Merry Christmas

 

Don't know if this has been posted before, but I just found it, and it's pretty cool. It's a screen saver that cycles images and displays information, sorta widget-like. Check it out.

from the site:

With the new MSN Screen Saver (Beta) you can:

* Personalize with background photos and news and weather information from MSN® or any RSS feeds from websites you choose.
* Search the Web and click news headlines directly from the Screen Saver.
* Stay connected with MSN Hotmail®, MSN Messenger, and MSN Spaces. Track how many unread Hotmail messages and current Messenger conversations you have, and display blogs and photos from your friends’ MSN Spaces.

Plymouth, MI- (November 16, 2005) – Ideazon Inc., designer and developer of the Zboard™, the world's first keyboard designed for PC gamers, has selected DirectSkin from Stardock to make their next generation of software skinnable. Users will be able to change the appearance of the software by selecting from a number of skins.

 

 

“Ideazon is committed to enhancing the PC gaming experience. Adding skinning to our ZEngine software allows us to do on a software level what our keysets already do for our keyboards,” said Michael Aronzon, Software Development Manager for Ideazon. “We were impressed with Stardock’s excellent reputation and the wide-spread acceptance of Stardock’s skinning standards across the technology sector. Stardock is a Microsoft Gold Partner and their skinning products are used by companies in our industry such as Blizzard and Alienware, so we were assured of compatibility with accepted standards.”

 

The next release of the ZEngine software will include a special Zboard skin created with Stardock’s SkinStudio as well as three skins created by the Stardock skinning community. In addition to the default look, users will be able to change the appearance of the software by selecting Seti Green, created by David Knott (DavidK), Ketix by Tim (Essorant) Dagger or DogmaX by Jim (Brewman) Brubaker.

 

 “We are really excited by the opportunity to work with Ideazon,” said Larry Kuperman, Sales Manager at Stardock. “They are a recognized leader in the gaming industry and with Stardock’s TotalGaming.Net PC games division, it was a natural partnership.

 

Ideazon is working with Stardock Media, the graphics design division, to create a number of skins based on today’s most popular PC games. Users will be able to download these skins to further enhance their PC experience.

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About Ideazon, Inc.
North American-based Ideazon Inc. develops, manufactures and markets the next generation of gaming peripheral technologies that enable a new level of interaction between end-users and their PC games. Zboard™ products enhance the gaming experience, accelerate gamers through the initial stages of a new game and ultimately improve gamer satisfaction. Ideazon is headquartered in Vaughan, Ontario. For more information, contact the company at pr@ideazon.com or on their website at www.zboard.com

 

 

About Stardock:

 

Stardock Corporation is the leader in the development and sales of award-winning Windows desktop customization solutions such as the Object Desktop software suite, featuring components including WindowBlinds, DesktopX, IconPackager, and more. Stardock Entertainment also develops best-selling computer games, including the Galactic Civilizations series, which are distributed electronically through Stardock’s TotalGaming.Net division. For more information, please visit the Stardock home page at https://www.stardock.com or contact Tom Ohle at tom@aegmail.com.