On Desktop Customizations....
StormLiong
Join Date: 2002-12-27 Member: 11569Members
Join Date: 2002-12-27 Member: 11569Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">Comments and Opinion</div> I have always been into customizing my desktop interface that suits me best. Having all icons at easy to reach n always ready places. And important info always readily displayed on desktop with the least amout of clutter.
So far I find WinXP to be doing this decently in some ways. Hides unwanted icons in the taskbar. Had teh ability to clear icons on teh desktop and so on. So I guess the time being I guess I am satisfied with it so far though just have a clean desktop n taskbar with the silver theme on it n a decent wallpaper just seems to be a bit bland and maybe some other improvements can be done with it.
So I am just wondering how good are LiteStep and DesktopX. I haven tried both of them but I did tried them for awhile on my old comp (REALLY old, a P2 266) a long time ago and they had just seemed to slow down the comp. I am considering to use a desktop customization method such as Litestep and DesktopX on my new comp (P4 1.7Gz, 384Ram, 60Gb - not so great comp, had limited budget) though my concern is the performance of my comp onces i use it.
Another issue I guess would be the themes available for LiteStep and DesktopX. Most of them use these "container" types, virtual desktops and Linux-style type of holding programs running in the taskbar. Should i decide to use these type of themes i got to relearn a whole new type of interface which I find would be waste of time especialy when i have to revert to using windows-style when i go to uni or use a friends comp. So i guess if i ever start using LiteStep, I'll try to find a windows-style interface theme which looks kickass n mayb more efficient. Though I guess the best solution is to make my own theme. Hehe
So i guess my point is that I wan to use teh dekstop customization progs around just because of the kewl themes around and for effieciency but my only issue is the performance that my comp might give should i use one and the hassle of learning a whole new interface. So far WinXP's inerface serves my need but its kinda boring. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
So far I find WinXP to be doing this decently in some ways. Hides unwanted icons in the taskbar. Had teh ability to clear icons on teh desktop and so on. So I guess the time being I guess I am satisfied with it so far though just have a clean desktop n taskbar with the silver theme on it n a decent wallpaper just seems to be a bit bland and maybe some other improvements can be done with it.
So I am just wondering how good are LiteStep and DesktopX. I haven tried both of them but I did tried them for awhile on my old comp (REALLY old, a P2 266) a long time ago and they had just seemed to slow down the comp. I am considering to use a desktop customization method such as Litestep and DesktopX on my new comp (P4 1.7Gz, 384Ram, 60Gb - not so great comp, had limited budget) though my concern is the performance of my comp onces i use it.
Another issue I guess would be the themes available for LiteStep and DesktopX. Most of them use these "container" types, virtual desktops and Linux-style type of holding programs running in the taskbar. Should i decide to use these type of themes i got to relearn a whole new type of interface which I find would be waste of time especialy when i have to revert to using windows-style when i go to uni or use a friends comp. So i guess if i ever start using LiteStep, I'll try to find a windows-style interface theme which looks kickass n mayb more efficient. Though I guess the best solution is to make my own theme. Hehe
So i guess my point is that I wan to use teh dekstop customization progs around just because of the kewl themes around and for effieciency but my only issue is the performance that my comp might give should i use one and the hassle of learning a whole new interface. So far WinXP's inerface serves my need but its kinda boring. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
If you're looking at litestep, i would say the main attraction is the new minimalist interfaces and interesting theme styles. It isnt really any more efficiently designed, and you do lose some areas of functionality that you might miss from XP. (Example, on the themes i have used it is not possible to drag a file, hold your cursor over the taskbar image of another folder to pop up that window, and then drop the file in.)
DesktopX i haven't used, but i imagine it is similar.
As for performance issues, in general windows use i see no differences in performance at all, but i have quite a nice system so i can't say if it has any performance hit on slow machines. One problem you may find though is that when playing Half-life, or certain other fullscreen games the GUI likes to display itself over the top of whatever you are running. When it does this, it will cripple your framerate. You can avoid this by closing the GUI as you open half-life, in which case it will run fine with no performance hit.
The only shell I really like is ge0shell - but it's <b>extremely</b> minimalistic, so if that's not your thing you probably wouldn't like it.