The Desktop Improvement Thread
 

I'm a big believer in making your computer desktop as efficient as you can. I think having to look at and use a computer desktop every day can get old if the desktop is ugly or inefficient, but it can make you get more work done and enjoy your experience every day if your desktop is attractive and efficient.

To that end, I'm hoping we can use this thread to share tips that we have picked up from around the web or daily experience that enhance our desktop experience.

I will start with my desktop, which is posted below:


I have included some little balloon blurbs that explain what you are looking at.

First of all, what is "blackbox for windows?" It is a "shell replacement," which means it takes the place of the shell that is the default for windows, called "explorer." Now, I don't mean the web browser, Internet Explorer. I mean "explorer," which is the program that draws the taskbar, systray, start menu, and all that stuff. Blackbox for windows doesn't just change the appearance of those items, it gets RID of them and uses its own ideas for those items.

I HEARTILY recommend blackbox for windows (particularly the specific program branch called "bblean") for those that are comfortable with alternate shells. If you are comfortable with customizing your computer and have never tried blackbox for windows, I fully recommend you try it. I can't even STAND using the explorer shell anymore. It is so inefficient and unattractive, it is actually painful to me.

Blackbox for windows has lots of "plugins" which you can load and unload through an easy to use menu system. You can see the plugins I have loaded in the screenshot above. There are lots of others to choose from, of course.

The other desktop item you see is a "Konfabulator" widget. Konfabulator is just a program that displays little programs (called widgets) directly on your desktop. It is a nice little program. However it has some downsides. It uses much more system resources than blackbox for windows does. In fact, with just that one widget running, Konfab uses almost 3 times the resources that blackbox does with all of those plugins going.

Links for those that are interested in exploring these items (all free, of course!)

Blackbox for Windows
bblean branch of Blackbox for Windows (the specific branch I use)
Konfabulator
Deviant Art - where I get nearly all of my wallpapers and bb4win styles (basically color schemes)

There is way too much going on for my tastes.

Dork.

The thing is, it all auto-hides. All those drawers are only there when you need them, the taskbar on top can be set to auto-hide, you can set all the plug-ins to auto-hide in what's called a slit.

The screenshot looks very busy so I could show a lot of what it can do without making a movie. In reality, it is not nearly this busy. The kicker about all of this is it uses about 1/6 the resources as the explorer shell does (conservatively). Explorer averages around 18-20 Mb of resources on my computer, while I can blackbox has never broken 3 Mb on my computer. So it actually speeds your experience up in addition to the increased efficiency of the wharf and meny system and other plug-ins right on the desktop.

Hi, Mr. Pot. I'm Mr. Kettle.

Or should we pretend you (and everyone else here) are NOT a member of a TEXT-SIM MESSAGE BOARD.

There are varying degrees of dorkiness, Mr. Kettle.

Let's try to keep this thread on topic, Mr. Pot.

I have a topless chick on my desktop. Can your little blackbox do that? I didn't think so. ;)

Dude shell replacements are so 7 years ago (memories of using Litestep so many moons ago).

I know you are joking but blackbox has many cool wallpaper things it can do, including dragging and dropping images to set them as wallpaper (hold down ctrl or shift or alt for centering, tiling, stretching options).

So yeah, um, who's the topless chick?

Litestep has come a long way in 7 years. I use it from time to time, too. Explorer shell is so, um, well it never was. Use something, ANYTHING else for the love of...how about that topless chick, Marmel?

I might use one again someday when i get bored. ;)

I find this kind of funny--I'm a minimalist when it comes to my desktop. I have about 3 rows of shortcuts to things I use frequently (or ones that came default and I haven't bothered to clean up). But, in all honesty, I prefer using Windows Explorer...windows button+e and I have access to everything I need, most of the time. There are only so many programs I use regularly, they all show up in my most used/recently used program list in the start menu...

That said, I like desktop customization, and am currently using TGT Soft's Style XP. http://www.tgtsoft.com/

/tk

:eek: Very cool desktop man!!! My desktop, compared to yours, is ugly and boring. I'm going to try this Blackbox program and improve it...

Sweet downloaded an installed this just now, pretty nice...

What plugin is that you are for the shortcut menus in your screenshot?

bbIconBox

This Blackbox program is great, I didn't know it. Thanks for sharing. What theme do you have?

The "style" I have set in that screenshot is called "Peer." I probably got it at Deviant Art. No idea really. Blackbox styles are pretty easy to find (you can get hundreds at Deviant Art). I usually just pick my wallpaper and then find an appealing, high-contrast style that doesn't clash with it.

Note that the style you pick affects all the blackbox plug-in appearances as well. Keeps the whole thing visually unified. One of my favorite things. Can't do much about that Konfabulator widget, though. If I knew who to write plug-ins I would write one that does what that TV-widget does.

By the way for those of you that are trying this out, some must have plug-ins that you don't see visually:

bbKeys - allows you to set hotkeys for starting programs or performing other system actions

bbMemoryShrink - allows you to greatly reduce the amount of resources blackbox uses (from about 12 Mb down to less than 2 Mb for a basic bb setup)

bbWorkSpaceWheel - allows you to scroll between your virtual desktops with the mousewheel. This is killer. I never even used the virtual desktops that were available in blackbox until this plug-in was made. Now I can't live without it.

EDIT: Some people love the bbMouseGestures plug-in, too. I can't say that I care much for mouse gestures, but some people feel the same way about it as I do about the workspacewheel. That's why I love this plug-in architecture though. I don't have to use system resources on functionality I don't need or want.

Also the Deviant Art site it's fantastic, great stuff!!!

*makes love to MJ4H*

I keep it simple. It's all about keyboard jockeying.

I was hoping some others would show off what they like on their desktop that everyone else may not have or even know about.

I think probably nearly everyone has a generic desktop, only differences being the background (Deviant art does indeed rock ;)).

Nearly everyone does, and that is what I'm trying to help people break out of. There is so much out there but people don't know its out there or don't understand how much better it is than the default explorer shell.

So hopefully the people that are outside of the set of people [nearly everyone] will post what they use. I know some people use Litestep here at least, because I've seen it in the previous desktop screenshots thread(s). There are literally tens of alternatives to even those two shells, though.

I liked what I read and saw about blackbox on here and on their website, so I downloaded and installed it. I am having a hard time getting it to look like I want to though. For instance, I am having difficulties installing some of the plug-ins. I have edited the plugin.rc file and put the & sign in front of them, but still no luck. I looked on the forums over there but didn't see any that helped me. Am I overlooking something obvious or am I not smart enough to use blackbox?

I usually load the plug-ins via the menu instead of the rc file. Go to rclick menu then Blackbox - Config - Plugins - Add Plugins.

Then you browse to the plugin where you've unzipped it (I always do each plug-in in its own sub-directory in the plugins subdir). Once you do this it will add it to the list of plug-ins you can just click to turn on and off under
rclick-blackbox-config-plugins-load/unload

Note also that in the menu system if you left click on the title bar of the menu the menu is pinned and stays open until you lclick it to close it. Very handy for the deep sub-menus like the plug-in loading and unloading.

As for the slit stuff, I read that you have to add a & in front of it in the .rc file, but I never messed with that too much. I don't have much use for the slit, really. Maybe someday I will though. Is that the exact part you are having trouble with?

EDIT- Note that you only need the & if you are trying to load plug-ins into the slit (not really necessary for me). I don't think I've ever had to open the plugins.rc file.

Okay, I think I've got it now. I didn't really understand what it was talking about with the "slit." I just assumed I needed to do that. I took the ampersand off, and then clicked on reconfig, and I think I've got it now. Although when I right click and go to blackbox and then config I don't have an option to select "plugins." I got it working for now though, so I'm okay for a while. I might come back with some questions though, so don't go too far. Thanks.

Hehe I'll be here. The slit I think is kind of like a dock for plug-ins to go into in a group. I don't use it at all.

MJ4H-I may play around with BB later, but right now I'm enjoying my configuration.
Though I muchly appreciate the DA site. Got me a badass background. :D
/tk

This is pretty sweet. Thanks for turning me onto this.

Ok, what is the name of the shortcuts plug-in for blackbox? Thanks.

bbIconBox is what I have in the upper-left.

Do these plugins have any documentation? I've been trying to play with BBWeather and can't get it to display anything.

the Yahoo!.svc file included with it is out-of-date. Try this one:

http://box.crackmonkey.us/phpbb2/download.php?id=39

and a sample bbWeather.rc file for use with it:
http://box.crackmonkey.us/phpbb2/download.php?id=38

Found in this thread
http://box.crackmonkey.us/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=205

Is this stuff installed on a user specific area or globally? I have user accounts for myself and oliegirl, I don't want to fuck up her setup if I play around with this.

bblean gives you the option of installing for current user only or all users. You are asked explicity when you install.

Hmmm, looked promising, but now I can't get blackbox to start without hanging and killing explorer.

Not sure what you mean. Explorer shouldn't be running at all if you have installed blackbox.

I was running it on top of explorer. I didn't want to trust it to replace explorer until I could get a successful start and stop of the program.

Well it isn't designed to do that so I'm sure the two are conflicting and causing your problem. It isn't a big deal to "trust" far enough to try it on its own. If you run into a problem you can always hit ctrl-alt-del to bring up task manager where you can run the blackbox.exe -uninstall program and when you reboot its back to explorer. (You might double-check that the default task manager in your OS can run programs through browsing--I use process explorer as my task manager and it can, but I'm fairly sure I remember the default one can, too).

Actually, the quick-start documentation says to start by running it on top of explorer. It is entirely possible that Konfabulator was the program that was locking up the computer. I uninstalled that and it seems like blackbox is running better. I'll have to play some more.

Which quick-start documentation is that? Do you have a link? I'd like to see what it recommends. The only thing I ever saw instructions for starting it were to run "blackbox.exe -install" and reboot.

Anyway, if you are running it on top of other shells, that almost has to be why you are having problems. Blackbox itself is by my, and all other accounts, rock-solid.

Odd. Doesn't say explicity to run it ontop of explorer, but it also doesn't tell you to kill explorer. Still these two programs will be competing for some tasks so it is bound to cause some conflicts.

ALSO: haha when the heck was 1.16 released! Im still using 1.13

Well, it says to run the program by double-clicking the icon in windows explorer. It later says, when things are running well, run 'blackbox.exe -install' from a command line. The black box menu has an option for installing itself as a shell replacement, and another option for uninstalling itself and restoring explorer. There is another menu option to start explorer while running blackbox. Looks like they are supposed to be able to run together, or there wouldn't be so many ways to run both at the same time...not that conflicts would be totally unexpected.

I'm up and running with blackbox and several plugins. I really like the new look. It's much less cluttered than my previous desktop. On my computer explorer still starts up when I first turn on my computer. I would like for blackbox to be the default desktop, but I haven't gotten it to do that yet. Even if blackbox never does become the default for me, it's still much better changing it over after it boots up. Thanks for showing me blackbox and for helping me with my stupid questions. By the way, one reason I was having more difficulty is because I was using Blackbox instead of BBLean. BBLean is much easier to use for me at least.

Ok, I looked a little into the help files, but didn't find any specific answers.
I've got some basics questions MJ4H:
-How can I create windows (like you did with games, apps, media...) with the bbIconBox plugin? I installed it, but I only see a small window with all my desktop's icon.
-How can I customize the weather plugin with my city???
-What's alpha/beta/gamma on the top left of the bar?
-How can I "show" my desktop with blackbox?
Thanks a lot!

I definitely prefer bblean. ahbrady have you run blackbox.exe -install? That will install it as the default shell. When you reboot it should be just blackbox after you do that.

I'm not sure how to manually set what shell starts up, but I do know there are shell switching utilities out there if you are still having problems, so a google search might help you.

You new bbox guys post your new desktops! I'd love to see them!

Ctrl-right click in an empty space in your iconbox and you will see a menu with the options for customizing, including creating new iconboxes

There should be instructions for customizing bbWeather that come with the plugin, but basically you Go to Yahoo.com and click on yahoo weather, enter your location information and when it gets to the page giving you your local weather, look at the URL in your browser. The last little part of the URL, right before the .htm extension should be copied into the bbWeather.rc file in the correct location (the last field, probably).
Those are the default names for your virtual desktops. You can shift left-click on that spot and change the names of your desktops (called workspaces) to whatever you want. I used I, II, III, and IV for awhile. Right now I'm using more descriptive names like Main, Media, Apps, Misc
To take a screenshot just hit your print screen button on your keyboard. Then open up MS Paint and hit ctrl-v. Save the file as a JPG or PNG and upload it to some webspace (photobucket offers some free space if you dont have any)

Awesome thread, MJ4H. I have looked at but never tinkered with shell replacement because we had a W98 box and my girlfriend did not want to tinker with something different. Now that we have an XP box, I think I will be giving it a try again. Woohoo! :D

I am finding it impossible to change my background image with Blackbox. Even when I apply downloaded styles, it doesn't change. What do I have to do?

Downloaded styles I think have to include a certain switch or item in them to autoamatically change your background when you set the style. I've found most don't do this. I just download the wallpaper separately and set it manually when I want to change. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but I don't really know exactly what it is.

Ok then, how do you do it manually? right click --> system --> Blackbox --> backgrounds doesn't work for me, is there something else?

Right click:
System - Control - Display takes you to the normal windows display properties interface. Control - System is where all the control panel functions are.

whats the sys info and volume plugins u use?

Awesome, that worked. Now, what exactly is the 'slit'?

BBSysmon and BBInterface

The Slit is sort of like a dock for plug-ins I gather. Since I don't use it, I can't tell you much about it.

Awesome man, thanks! I'm starting to learn how this thing works...

Hmpf. FM2005 refuses to run in windowed mode under bblean.

Yet another reason we need the QOTM!

I'm finding TVscraper from the Konfabulator website to be a mighty useful utility since my nights are filled with watching TV while on the puter. Thanks for the idea MattJones.

I set it up perfectly for a, " I don't think it exists, it's a myth," response, but nobody stepped up.

I ran into this problem the other day. I forgot to even consider it could be bblean causing this, since I have never had a single problem with any other game. I even started a thread about it here and Marc Vaughan responded telling me what to do. But yeah, it refused to start in windowed mode for me, too. Runs full-screen just fine. That is literally the first problem I've had running any software with bblean. Everything else works flawlessly.

I have a feeling it would actually be one of the plug-ins giving it fits, though, like the one that tries to skin the title bar and stuff. I might play around with switching off plugins later today to see if it helps. If it does I can just make a shortcut with bbKeys to turn the plugin off and start FM in one stroke, I guess.

I haven' tried this yet, but try adding fm2005.exe to BBLeanSkin's exclusions.rc file

Where do you download blackbox? I got to the site you mentioned, d/l'd 1.16, clicked on "blackbox.exe" and got a brown screen and it locked up.

Hey MJ4H, how did you get your shortcuts in the top left to look big and colorful? Mine are tiny and black and white.

Icon size 32, Saturation 255, Hue 0

(ctrl-click to bring up the options menu to set these)

Nice, thanks!

Is there any shortcut in bbLean to minimize all programs and show the desktop like in explorer?

You can set it up in bbKeys I think

Small bump.

Just discovered a program called Object dock which I really like. It customizes the desktop in the mold of os X. ie. dock on the bottm with pretty icons that get big when you put an arrow over them. Reduced my desktop clutter and looks nice.

Here is the link for those interested: http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/

Is Blackbox still available for download? I searched the site and can't find the file to download.

Looks like it's here

http://www.bb4win.org/e107_plugins/c....php?content.6

But it's no longer developed.

Duh !!! The comment about version 1.13 and 1.16 in a message earlier threw me off.
Thanks

Well it does look like from that link that there are a couple different versions of it, but I didn't look much deeper other then reading it.

There are a couple of other alternatives out there to object dock. The easiest to find is probably Rocket Dock

http://www.punksoftware.com/projects

There is also yz dock which is harder to find I think because apple tried to shut it down (so I hear). If you like Object Dock, Rocket Dock is worth checking out. I don't remember the differences, but you might find one runs faster or offers a little something the other doesn't.

I've been using ObjectDock since somebody (GWB maybe?) pointed it out in another thread. I like it, but it does seem to slow some things down a bit. I have a decent processor and plenty of RAM too. I'll take a look at Rocket Dock.

Bump because bblean 1.17.1 is great and plays nice with vista/7.

Lost In The Box - View topic - bbLean 1.17.1

This thread makes me realize how much more I like dangarion compared to DanGarion.

Screenshot of my desktop with the new bblean and auto-hide turned off:

Aw man... thanks... :(

Not having seen this thread when it began, I started to read, saw Franklinnoble and threw up in my mouth a little.

what is babeschess?

You took 1400 pics of...Jonesboro?

haha no I was transferring geocaching info to my gps including web pages that have lots of icon-sized images.

it is babaschess

it is an interface for the free internet chess server (freechess.org)

mj4h, is there much overhead(running the xwindows like skin thingy that is)? if I have a semi-marginal 3 year old XP machine do you know if would I be totally fucking myself if I ran that?

That's his hidden Pron folder.

stupid question : What in the hell is this bblean thing ? I did consult wikipedia, but i don´t speak "computer" very well and all i think i understand is that it is basically a new interface for windows, is that about right ? :confused:

it replaces the windows interface - an i guess uses a lot less system resources to do so. so "behind the scenes" it's still windows, but just with a different interface...(someone correct me if i'm wrong)

Here is my current desktop on my three year old laptop. Looking at getting a laptop and I will probably dual boot that as well, as I am hooked into Linux fully now.

edit: Oh, and my recording was better then this, but I seem to have gone the cheap route with converting the video format and making it a little smaller to upload for time's sake. So any weird things (like parts of one screen staying around when I rotate) don't actually happen, that is just the video. It is all nice and smooth and pretty.

Current (for tonight) desktop. Just installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS beta 2 so I am messing around with it. I am sure the wallpaper will only last a few days. Top task bar hides but it's there if I need to access those menus.



Also threw in a picture of the new default window buttons in Ubuntu 10.04. Having them on the left side is taking some getting used to but I am adapting. Didn't realize I have been adjusting/closing windows for 20 years with buttons on the right side until I started using them on the left.

Cringer, what are you using to get the window switcher to function that way? I may try it out.

It's the default setup in Ubuntu 10.04 (so I hope you use Linux). 10.04 comes out April 27th or 29th I think, this is the Beta 2 version I have on and it's actually working for me with no problems unlike the 9.10 betas so I have kept rolling with it. If you want them on the right (normal) side you have to actually go in and change it, though I am not sure how because I haven't cared enough to look.