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Neogaf Desktop/Homescreen/Whatever Thread (Q1 2012 Edition)

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Tokubetsu

Member
dbax

Wallpaper is one of the official Dragon Tattoo ones.
 

noah111

Still Alive
Holy SHIT that is such an awesome wallpaper! Thanks for the source! Finally a nice wall to show my PS pride.
 

noah111

Still Alive
I wonder how they did that. It's a fascinating image.
Yeah, I tried to find information about it, but to no avail.. It's actually awfully detailed, as someone who has broken/opened/fixed/smashed white a few PS3 controllers in my time. :p
 

soultron

Banned
Yeah, I tried to find information about it, but to no avail.. It's actually awfully detailed, as someone who has broken/opened/fixed/smashed white a few PS3 controllers in my time. :p

It's boggling my mind so hard right now. I'm guessing it's entirely CG.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Is Windows Blinds (or Object Dock) still good? I haven't gone with a custom desktop in a while...I'm going to work on getting something set up tonight. I'm checking out Rainmeter at the moment.

I'd like to have a setup that will let me access many games (20+) and multiple TV shows (another 40+) from my desktop, but without cluttering it.
 

Threi

notag
For the most part...no. Support dried up for it around the time Windows 7 came out. Not really worth the money in my opinion.

That being said it is still a more powerful skinning tool than custom theme/msstyles files.

Speaking of which XWidget is actually pretty good, it has a very powerful editor, which is both a good and bad thing. A lot of stuff to learn. I hope more skins come out for it, it could be a great alternative to rainmeter.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Makes sense. I really don't need to replace the Windows taskbar anyways...I like it as is. Rainmaker can probably do what I need.

Anyways, just installed Rainmaker. This is the mess of icons I need to somehow organize (roughly categorized by row).

desktop_in_progress.png


Anyone know of any Rainmaker skins out there that will allow me to groups lots of icons under one larger icon, or something like that? For example, I could press a "Games" button and it would expand a list of my games.
 

Threi

notag
If straight desktop organisation is your primary goal why not give fences a shot? Personally i would get rid of all the shortcuts and just use the start menu search but if you don't want to do that fences is a good tool.

http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/

Using rainmeter to handle your icons is possible, but its a ton of work. Basically you would have to find a skin that has it's own application launcher portion in it (since rainmeter is more of a fancy system monitoring app, not really an app launcher) and type in every shortcut link yourself. Not very fun.

The rainmeter skin that is probably the closest to what you are looking for though would be Tabmeter. If you have some time on your hands you could give it a shot:

http://toastbrotpascal.deviantart.com/art/Tabmeter2-166335187
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Yeah, I've used Fences in the past and I quite like it. It would organize everything except too many non Steam games will get messy, and I still can't really access my TV shows.

If I can't find anything to suit my needs, I'll go back to Fences.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
So far the closest thing I can find is this:

http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/skins/sysmonitor/rainmeter/?order=5&offset=72#/d4m7y2f

hex_luancher_by_nawmtaronyu-d4m7y2f.jpg


Most of the other skin just have buttons that are far too small.

Ideally I'd want something even simpler. A bunch of big icons on the left for each category, and when I click one, it expands a list or a window with whatever is in that category. Support for movie folders is a plus.

Essentially, I'm looking for similar functionality to the PS3's XMB, but with a more PC centric look and feel.

This is another candidate, though again, the icons are small:

___home____by_darkeagle2011-d4jkq0a.jpg
 

Threi

notag
Ideally I'd want something even simpler. A bunch of big icons on the left for each category, and when I click one, it expands a list or a window with whatever is in that category. Support for movie folders is a plus.
im sure someone has done it, but there are so many rainmeter skins out there....you will just have to search for them.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Found what I was looking for:

http://customize.org/rainmeter/skins/68733

72249.jpg


Sadly, it's not as peachy as I'd hoped. Adding applications/games to a tab is not easy. You need to edit a path file and put an icon PNG in a specific folder. I was hoping I could have a tab just automatically display all shortcuts in a folder I specified.

Also, performance is very mixed. Sometimes I'll click a tab and it takes 2 seconds for it to pop up. Other times it will pop up almost instantly.

I guess Rainmeter just isn't quite as powerful as I'd hoped.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Well, I've gone back to Fences. I got rid of the old games and managed to fit the essentials. I'll probably find a more proper Rainmeter skin to go along with it tomorrow, and maybe a new wallpaper.

progress1.png
 

Threi

notag
Rocketdock is actually a great suggestion, forgot about that app since I started using windows 7.

And yeah rainmeter isn't very good for application launching, like I said. Its more for system monitoring.
 
Hey guys, this is probably going to sound like one of those REALLY stupid "things you should know" questions, but...

I just built a new PC, and have switched over to Windows 7 after using XP for the longest time. I want to clean up my desktop before tweaking it, but how do I delete shortcuts from the desktop area without their icons disappearing from the Start menu as well? In XP you could get rid of a shortcut and that wouldn't happen. I know that I can just hide the desktop icons, but that gets rid of the Recycle Bin and I want to keep that up there.

Thanks in advance.
 

voodooray

Member
Hey guys, this is probably going to sound like one of those REALLY stupid "things you should know" questions, but...

I just built a new PC, and have switched over to Windows 7 after using XP for the longest time. I want to clean up my desktop before tweaking it, but how do I delete shortcuts from the desktop area without their icons disappearing from the Start menu as well? In XP you could get rid of a shortcut and that wouldn't happen. I know that I can just hide the desktop icons, but that gets rid of the Recycle Bin and I want to keep that up there.

Thanks in advance.

Are you possibly confusing the pinned to area with the shortcuts most recently interacted with, including what's on your desktop? If you want to keep it, right click the shortcut and choose pin to start menu.

Try hiding desktop icons, but create a desktop toolbar shortcut on your taskbar, which will give you everything, including the recycle bin. It works great.
 

Jasoco

Banned
Wait, how do you make Geektool text go behind parts of the desktop? Did you extract those parts of the image and add them into Geektool?
Yes. That's how you do it. It only works best if you have a single desktop picture you use. I have 800+ that I rotate so I can't do the cool stuff like that. Instead I do my own thing. I'll post a shot later.
 
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