The Desktop Improvement Thread

[MJ4H]

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)

[Suicane75]

There is way too much going on for my tastes.

[Franklinnoble]

Dork.

[MJ4H]

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.

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Dork.

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.

[Franklinnoble]

Originally Posted by MattJones4Heisman

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.

[MJ4H]

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

[Marmel]

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

[DanGarion]

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

[MJ4H]

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?

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by dangarion

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

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?

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by MattJones4Heisman

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.

[terpkristin]

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

[Emiliano]

Originally Posted by MattJones4Heisman

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.

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

[valhalla]

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

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

[MJ4H]

bbIconBox

[Emiliano]

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

[MJ4H]

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.

[MJ4H]

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.

[Emiliano]

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

[korme]

*makes love to MJ4H*

[jeff061]

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

[MJ4H]

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

[jeff061]

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

[MJ4H]

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.

[ahbrady]

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?

[MJ4H]

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.

[ahbrady]

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.

[MJ4H]

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.

[terpkristin]

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.
/tk

[Fouts]

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

[Fouts]

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

[MJ4H]

bbIconBox is what I have in the upper-left.

[BrianD]

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

[MJ4H]

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

[Radii]

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.

[MJ4H]

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

[BrianD]

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

[MJ4H]

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

[BrianD]

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.

[MJ4H]

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).

[BrianD]

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.

[MJ4H]

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.

[BrianD]

http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/docs/bblean.htm

[MJ4H]

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.

[MJ4H]

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

[BrianD]

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.

[ahbrady]

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.

[Emiliano]

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!

[MJ4H]

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!