RGdot

Tag: dock

  • Nexus Is A Fast Dock Launcher

    Nexus Is A Fast Dock Launcher

    Nexus, from the makers of the Winstep desktop enhancement package, is a standalone dock launcher that is otherwise also part of the aforementioned shareware package. This is a true dock in competition with RocketDock and ObjectDock. It is attractive but lightweight and fast.

    Going through the settings or preferences, accessible most easily by right clicking the Nexus icon that is part of the default dock or by right clicking on the tray icon itself, is the way to discover its many features. Adding program shortcuts to the dock is done in two ways. The more difficult way is to right click anywhere on the dock and choose ‘Insert New Dock Item’. Doing it this way requires choosing a label, finding the item or program by browsing and more. The slightly easier way is to drag the program’s icon to the dock where it can be added automatically. In both cases a hot key can be added by choosing combinations of Ctrl, Shift and Alt keys or mouse actions or gestures such as ‘bumping’ corners of the screen.


    Nexus

    Getting back to the program’s options and preferences, there are many possibilities for making an attractive and useful dock. The Position & Behavior tab has settings for the screen position of the dock, offset pixels from any of the set (top, center, etc.) positions, behavior relating to multi-monitor set ups, auto hide options and whether the dock reserves its place on screen or allows windows to open on top of it or permanently stays on top. The Appearance tab controls the size of the dock icons and transparency and reflection of the dock and icons respectively. The Effects tab is the place to change the effects (obviously) of the icons when they are clicked. Themes is where the shape of the dock as a whole is chosen and the default install includes choices that make its background transparent. Tasks, among others, has such settings as ‘Show running applications in this dock’ and ‘Would you like to group windows that belong to the same application in a single icon or next to each other?’. Therefore the tasks setting can dramatically increase the size of the dock but provide easy access to all open windows. Sounds adds sounds (obviously again) to many and all actions associated with the program including a talking clock. The General tab is to control such things as the auto-hide settings, Windows Start up behavior and others such as leaving the program icon in the tray area and whether to launch programs within the dock with a single or double click. Advanced tries to help the user in balancing performance and speed, troubleshoot, back up and restore dock configurations and more.

    As seen in the image I have added the stacks from Standalonestack, featured here on RGdot, on to the Nexus dock. In my opinion this works well in terms of efficiency, productivity and even eye candy.

    Nexus runs on virtually all versions of Windows including its 64 bit flavors and Windows 7.

  • Use StandaloneStack To Access Files And Folders

    Use StandaloneStack To Access Files And Folders

    StandaloneStack is an attractive and useful way of accessing files and folders from any location.

    StandaloneStack
    The main use of StandaloneStack is to place a shortcut of sorts on the desktop that acts as a launcher. Only in this case StandaloneStack as it is is not a dock like ObjectDock from StarDock or perhaps the more famous RocketDock. Here a ‘stack’ is created and provides some eye candy and navigation without a dock.

    Once downloaded and unzipped one can create a new stack by simply clicking ‘New Stack’. Choose a name and browse to the folder which will be the target of the stack and opened when clicking on the stack icon. Then choose it’s shape and direction. The shape can be in the form of accordion like collection of icons or a rectangular grid (as shown in the image). The sorting can be set here as well plus the option to add an icon to open the folder in the usual way via Windows Explorer.

    StandaloneStack
    Some of the more interesting ‘General Settings’ consist of the following. It is possible to animate video icons, meaning that if a video resides in one of the stacked folders the icon will be dynamic and change. Custom icons are supported when checking the corresponding option and placing the icons or images in the Images folder inside the program folder. By checking the option to ‘Don’t Close Stack On Focus Lost (Run Shortcut Again To close)’ one can keep the stack open since by default the stack collapses after losing focus like when a file is launched. Icon size, text spacing, color and font are configurable for the fan or accordion and grid styles as well as the transparency and color of the text and stack background itself.

    But perhaps most importantly is the fact that one can navigate within stacks. Clicking on a folder opens the sub folder using the same stack style with an additional icon to go back.

    Follow its development on the Aqua-Soft forums where you can find many interesting utilities and related discussions.

  • Appetizer Is Food For Your Application Launching Needs

    Appetizer Is Food For Your Application Launching Needs

    Appetizer is described by its author as

    …a free application launcher, or dock, for Windows

    Appetizer is an open source entry in the application launcher list that includes the likes of 8Start, reviewed here previously, LaunchBar Commander from DonationCoder and many others. It is available in an executable and ZIP package portable. It also supports skins and plugins.

    Appetizer
    Appetizer, as it stands now at version1.3, keeps it simple. The first step in using it can be importing Start Menu and Quick Launch shortcuts using a special importer. Alternatively one can click on the + button (see image, showing Appetizer using the iAppetizer skin) or drag and drop program icons into the dock to create shortcut items manually. By right clicking shortcuts one can change the display name of the shortcut, change its path and icon and add special parameters that control how the application is launched. In addition to the aforementioned shortcuts can be added to ‘multi-launch’ groups. A multi-launch is often useful when one wants to open several portable applications (non-portable ones too) by clicking one single button. Here, using Appetizer, one can add many shortcuts to a group and open several applications simultaneously.

    The configuration menu of Appetizer lets the user do the following: choose its language (18 available as of this review), keep the app on top, check for updates, change its skin, its orientation (vertical or horizontal), its icon size, its transparency, auto hide it after an application launch, run multi-launch groups on start up, add a hot key to hide/show the dock and enable/disable plugins. One of the useful included plugins is the one that opens the folder where the application being launched resides in. Once enabled a plugin becomes accessible via a right click on any of the shortcuts.
    Appetizer is a very promising relatively new software and runs on Windows 2000, XP and Vista.