Tell us what you'd like to see in Object Desktop

I would like to see stardock come up with an "Skins Viewer" we could download and use
to preview skins that we have downloaded and saved for future use. Something like what you see when you go to Stardock Central and select the windowblinds section.

If there is already something like this, could you please point me in the right direction.

Thank you!!

I would like to see stardock come up with an "Skins Viewer" we could download and use to preview skins that we have downloaded

An "Installed skins" section under Skins & Themes would be cool.

I'd like to see a program that would allow for wallpaper on the explorer windows background. Something that doesn't "roll up" as you scroll thru programs.

The ability to adjust skin colors with the option NOT to change button colors

A program that controls window size, placement and visibility. Be great if you could tile across multiple displays. Better if it's NOT part of WFX

More available system info meters and meter skinning in OBar via the plug-in.

Multi-Display support for Taskbar in Wblinds.

Sizable RSS "Ticker" in Taskbar. Maybe like a toolbar.

An OBar, DX plugin that works with Outlook for Tasks, Appts. and Contacts.

more to come.........

Rightclick is part of OD correct? If it is...

I have always wanted the ability to edit OTHER rightclick menus and not just the desktop one. I have some nice ideas on how to go about this to make it smooth and simple.

Also have more cross program interaction. WB on Vista already skins "extra" parts of the system by using other sections of the windowblind skin. OB2 can copy your taskbar image and use it for its own bars. Stuff like that for widgets or object dock would be pretty cool.

A program that does for the Task Manager what EFD (Enhanced File Dialog?) did for the save/open menus. Just have it more advanced. Like the ability to "hide" programs that the OS always runs (like Vista did), rename programs so they aren't like sass.exe etc, add custom comments to programs. That sorta thing.

Sort of like above, but something like that for the add/remove programs menu would be nice too. The ability to hide/show programs, rename them, add comments, last used/opened/edited, etc. Just more advanced menus that give more information to the user .

A registry URL bar would be wicked... so it shows the keys location (and you could type ones in also). When getting help many people tell me to "locate HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\etc etc etc". Copy/pasting that location into a bar would be cool . Guess thats more of a tweak that could be put into an existing program than a whole new program lol.

Thats really all I can think of right now

I'd like to see a program that would allow for wallpaper on the explorer windows background. Something that doesn't "roll up" as you scroll thru programs.

I too would Love to see a folder background program. Not in XP, though. I hated to do all the work for every folder...creat the ini then set the system attribute through command prompt...then cut and paste when you wanted to change the background. I know there is already proggies out there for this...but if you could package it with OD 2007 for Vista, well that would be great!

I'd like to see some mechanism for linking related content together. For example, to link a proposal document to its bidsheet you could hold down a key combination, click and drag the document and drop it on the spreadsheet. You'd then have some visual device to let you know that links exist on the two documents and the ability (possibly from an addition to the context menu) to see a graphical representation of the links for that file, with the ability to click on a linked file and immediately open it or its containing folder. The system would allow whole networks of links to be made.

This would supplement the folder paradigm for collecting related content.

Nick

I'd like to see some mechanism for linking related content together

Like MS Binder? Wikipedia

Not particularly, that looks to be far too heavyweight for what I was thinking of. There would be no executable application for managing/viewing links and therefore no files to persist them. In fact, the whole idea of storing such link information in a file flies in the face of the concept which is to be able to immediately set and get file relationships from the files themselves without having to read it from somewhere. It would be built into the shell and managed transparently a la KeepSafe.

It could even just be a case of right clicking on the file, which brings up the usual context menu with an added option for "Links >" Selecting this new option would show a list of related files (that you had set earlier) and you just click on one to open it. Maybe you would have a system tray application where you could view all your links in a richer client environment (again a la KeepSafe).

Nick

I'd like to see better support for multiple displays accross the board.

I would like to have more control over what goes into the MFU programs list - things like frequency, last date executed, importance, etc.

I already mentioned this in another thread but this one would be more appropriate anyway - for RightClick, I would like to be able to display up to four right-click menus at once, one per each "quadrat", similar to 3ds max's context menus. Of course with control over how it should handle situations when the menus are out of space. Also support for more mouse buttons - in particular I really love the back/forward buttons on my mouse but I'd like to be able to customize (or at least use) their functionality in programs like rightclick and objectbar.

ping.

. . . pong

I'd like to see better support for multiple displays accross the board.

Yes please!

Yeah, maybe a program similar to UltraMon but designed to enhance the stardock product line for multi-monitor set-ups.

The ability to be able to change ALL system font colors would be a godsend. (if anyone has a reg.hack to do this please post it)

I also like the idea of being able to set an image for window backgrounds.

^ What smoovie said, AGREED!

I've remembered a few more additions to WindowBlinds I'd like to see for XP and Vista since my last post.

The ability to add shadows to the taskbar and start panel would be great. Menu item background and menu item are skinnable on Vista but on XP they just inherit classic colors when you are doing a perpixel skin. Makeing this skinnable when doing a perpixel skin would help alot. The log-off buttons on the start panel in XP when skinned in tga form look pixely unless you add a background image, which defeats the whole purpose of useing a tga file. An update to this would also be welcome.

If anything else comes to mind I'll be sure to post back here.

Thanks.

Just remembered this one too. It would be great if you could use a glass type transparency on the toolbar background as well.

easy to understand user guide/instruction manual for us noobs who'd like to create something.

An updated ObjectBar for Win2K.

Well... you did ask.

Here's my pennyworth..
Right Click to work with MS Office, some sort of ability to set transparency to windows background rather than to windows below, so background can be seen regardless of the number of apps overlaid,
more robust WFX - works fine for a few hours, but I run for days without a reboot and it all goes pear shaped and needs unloading leaving a mess.
DesktopX things that can be seen through transparency in the top-most app - like my request above for Desktop background - For example a calendar object that can always be seen but which is not 'on-top'.

I was just wondering what happened to Sound Packager or was that dropped, or did you decide to make that a vista app?

Easier Theme Builders for ObjectBar and RightClick. I understand that RightClick is really just an Objectbar seperated from the ObjectBar program. I don't see why RightClick couldn't be as configurable as NextStart.

I know from personal experimentation that RightClick can use OB skins which can add things to RC that aren't available thru the theme editor interface, like submenus using a different skin from the main menu, and animations on mouseovers. I'm sure I could figure out how to write the .obskin files and stuff by examining the existing ones, but I think a lot more people would use and skin RC if this stuff could be done through the theme editor.

This isn't technically a part of ObjectDesktop but, CursorXP needs a better way of selecting cursors. You could have it make a preview of the Normal cursor for each cursor set and display that in a skin chooser like the scrollable WB preview, instead of having to generate bitmaps just to remind you of what that set looks like.

Cant you just click through the list?  Its pretty quick to generate the previews in the display window...

That takes a few seconds per cursor, and I have a pretty large list...
If I'm looking for a particular cursor that I don't remember the name of I could spend 10-15 min "clicking through the list" if CXP doesn't crash from me trying to change to fast.

Documentation! User manuals, actual information in the Help files, getting started tutorials for using the programs, not just skinning them. I love the looks I can get with the various Object Desktop programs but I waste endless time poking around to see what they can do or trying to track down answers on the forums. Even a Read Me file with something in it besides permissions would be a start. Expecting user forums and tutorials to carry all the weight for such complex (and expensive)programs strikes me as a little lazy. I do realize these programs aren't intended for general users, but give us a little something, please!

P.S. Thank you to all the people who do take the time to write tutorials and post on the forums. What little I've been able to figure out about using these beautiful but frustrating programs is thanks to you.

Ah, finally found the feature request thread


I would like to see the following in Object Desktop for Vista:

-For TweakVista: A way to fix/restore system folders to their default looks. On another system I managed to mess up several system folders by deleting the desktop.ini files, and I had to do a reinstall to fix it. I'm especially thinking of the Fonts, Program Files, and user folders here.

-A way to add items to the /right/ side of the start menu, like is avaible to system manufacturers like Dell.

-For Stardock Central: a way to hide all non-Vista capable applications! It will happily let me install WindowFX, IconX, RightClick, Enhanced File Dialog -- which do not work right (or at all) on Vista.

A Random logon for Logon Vista.