Alternatives to the Dock Bar: Launchy!

I'll be honest, here; the only reason I still have a dock bar on my desktop at this point is that I think it's pretty. I could easily run my computer without one and be even more efficient, and there's one reason why.

The Keyboard Application Launcher.

The basic principle of this class of software is as follows: you hit a quick hotkey combination to bring up the launcher, start typing the name of the program you want, and voila; hit enter, and you've got your program in a few keystrokes.

Now, there are a few good choices in this field, but my personal favorite is Launchy. There are a few other decent choices, but I haven't tried all of them; Colibri was fairly good, when last I tried it, but Launchy has a few nice things going for it. It's easy to configure, it handles spelling mistakes pretty well. Enzo is also fairly decent, but then again it's also mostly dead - AND, counting further against it, it's not skinable.

Launchy, on the other hand, is. Very skinable, in fact. There are quite a lot of good skins available on DeviantArt, as is often the case with programs I'll mention, and it comes with a few good ones preloaded, too. Odds are you can find something you like that goes with whatever look you've got going for your desktop.

Another program that sometimes is mentioned is FindAndRunRobot, but I don't know much about its features or skinability. Mostly the screenshots I've seen just don't look terribly pretty, but I'm willing to be proven wrong if anyone can show otherwise.

Oh, but before I leave Launchy behind and finish this entry: Perhaps my favorite feature of Launchy is its ability to index files other than your Start Menu/Quick Launch. Launchy can also be configured to index your videos, photos, documents, music. . . whatever you might wish. I have mine set to index Videos, Music, and Documents, in all the places I commonly store them.

Download it, mess around, you'll figure it out; after all, it's freeware, safe, and light on resource consumption. You've got nothing to lose by trying it. :)

Rebuilding the Interface; The Dockbar

Ok, so you've got your nice, clean desktop running emerge, and you've taken a look around. It's time to rebuild, and if you'd like inspiration, take a look at my desktop to the left. This is only my current layout; I change things up fairly often. Please note, I take no credit for any of the images involved to the left, but I can't remember the authors involved. [Edit 20090727: The wallpaper is located at the DeviantArt page of the author, OfficerMike.] If you want options to customize things, though, the best place to hunt around is DeviantArt. 

First, let me remind you that this IS Windows Vista. And this isn't even the most impressive setup you'll see if you go looking. But it's a fairly decent one, and it's a good place to start for what we're talking about. 

Take a good look. If you look really close, you can see my system tray in the upper right hand corner, and a clock and calendar in the lower right. Those are both emerge applets, customized just right - I like them there, but out of the way. A little experimentation will help you find the setup that's just right for you. As for the rest?

The two docks - that's right, two - are both created by the Plus version of ObjectDock. And that's what we'll be talking about this time; the dockbar. 

The dock might not be the most efficient way to access ones programs, but it's definitely one of the coolest looking methods. The right skin, the right icons, and you've got something gorgeous. There are a number of different dockbars out there that are worth looking at, so it all depends on the features and so on that you're looking for. 

The best one, in my opinion, is ObjectDock, either plus or free - but of course, the plus version will set you back a few bucks. If you feel like you want the features, IE, if having more than one dock on the screen at once sounds like a nice idea, or having tabbed docks. . . then it's worth it to you. I went for it because I like having all the options, bells, and whistles. 

Other classically named good options with a good feature set include RocketDock and rklauncher, but on my system at least, both of these free docks use more system resources for fewer features (or in the case of rklauncher, features that wouldn't use); however, results vary, so if you're interested, try them all out. Another good looking dock that's coming out shortly is the new Nexus dock from the makers of WinStep; it's in free open beta right now, but it looks promising. 

The setup I use has ObjectDock plus showing two docks, one zoomer at the bottom, and another one on the left. The left hand dock serves as my taskbar; it's completely transparent, and displays screenshots of minimized windows. Windows that haven't been minimized simply don't appear on the taskbar, though I could have set them to display. Again, it's all about what makes the most sense to you. 

You SHOULD be able to do either of the two docks I have on screen with the free version of ObjectDock - just not both. So if you wanted to duplicate my setup for free you'd have to run two dock programs, and make sure that the program icons on both were synced up. However, this would consume more memory than having the one program to do both; believe me, I tried it. 

I'll try and track down the links to the author pages for what I'm using above if it becomes important, but otherwise, once again, I take no credit for any of the basic elements; I just combined them. 

Excelsior! 

p.s. The one thing you're not seeing all of is my widgets; I'll explain that in a later post. 

A Clean Slate: Changing the Shell

Alright, so you're interested in building a better user experience in XP or Vista. If you're willing to take the leap required away from what you're used to, the first step toward a better, brighter future, is to change the shell. 

The default Windows shell, as I've mentioned before, is Explorer.exe, and while it has its good points, it is classically a memory hog, and even once you've taken the steps needed for good quality skinning, like Visual Styles or even the purchase of StarDocks excellent WindowBlinds. . . there's only so much you can do to tailor it to your needs. IF you're like me, anyway, you wind up with a bunch of other programs designed to make things easier and more friendly for yourself running on top of the shell, and sooner or later you have to cut corners. One of the fastest ways to do that is to switch to a lighter, more minimalistic shell to build your experience on top of. 

The best shell replacement I've yet tried, having tried several, is emergeDesktop. It's lightweight, with a low memory footprint and enough customization options to give you all the functionality you need from it while keeping it out of your way. One of its primary stated goals is to maximize screen size, so if you've got pretty wallpapers that you like looking at it's a good way to go. 

Some other options include litestep and other shells in its family - while these shells are perhaps a bit stronger on number of features offered, they're also more difficult to configure. If you're interested in that, go here: www.litestep.net/

Otherwise, you'll be wanting to know about emerge, and as it's the shell I actually use, we'll be discussing it below. Emerge has one other strong advantage going for it over some of the other decent minimalist shells out there in that it's still being actively developed by the fantastic ironhead. It also has the advantage, from my mind, of being very stable; I've never had it crash on me in day-to-day activities. Once, when I was putting undue strain on it anyway. But not a common thing. Anyone else using Explorer getting used to the 'routine crash'? 

(You know, it also helps if you pull out anything that you don't need that wasn't made by MS and run all your updates; but sometimes you're just better off changing horses.)

You'll start by downloading the latest stable release of emerge from the aforementioned website. If you can't figure out where to get it from there, you really shouldn't be trying to change your shell, now should you? Wink, wink. Seriously, people, I see this step listed all the time, and half the time there's photos. Do we really need that much instruction for a download? 

No? I didn't think so. 

The process of changing your default shell is made very easy by the emerge install process; the included program, Emerge Desktop Shell Changer, makes it a simple matter to change back to the Explorer shell if need be. 

So, you run the install, you change your shell, and you either reboot or log out and in again. What now? 

Well, you'll see the standard emerge applets. Yeah, I said applets. . . each applet is a mini-program that makes up some feature of the shell. You only use the applets you actually need, so anything that's replaced by some other program you can just turn off. Neat, huh? 

As opposed to Explorer, which basically loads practically EVERYTHING, even if you don't use anything on your taskbar at all. 

Plus, you can drag the applets anywhere on the screen (Ctrl + Click 'n' Drag) and Ctrl + Click to change the settings. 

Wanna know where your icons went? Rightclick the desktop, and you'll see the emergeDesktop applet, which is basically a fancy context menu. You DO know what a context menu is, right? The menu you see when you rightclick on something? You do? Good. 

Mess around a little. You'll figure it out. If you don't, you can always go back . . . there are some really nice, fancy EXTENSIONS to the Explorer shell you could try instead, but they only ADD memory consumption, not reduce it. 

The default applets are emergeDesktop, Tray, Tasks, and I think Command - between them giving you all the basic functionality of the taskbar and then some. Including a clock! 

Now that you've got your neat, minimalist desktop, it's time to add some flare to it, and make things more usable for your day-to-day. We'll start talking about software to add in my next entry; until then, just.  . . don't forget to be awesome, ok? Good luck! 

PS; if you're feeling edgy, you might also try one of the blackbox variants for windows. Google it; BBlean, BBclean, bb4win, and others. They're linux based, and have their good points. . . but they couldn't beat emerge for me, and they have occasional stability issues when run as a shell replacement.