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After looking at a few really cool linux desktops i decided to have a go to make my windows machine a bit cooler. I didn't want to use a window blinds type app or any shell replacement so i used only the windows dialogs and customised it a bit. I've also some cool programs called Rainlendar and RainMeter for the nice system info at the side. Anybody else got a nice looking desktop screen grab they wanna share???

Click the image for a bigger one.

Just curious, whats your idle ram usage is with all those third party "pretty" apps going?

Personal I use a shell replacement called BBLean (fast and stable) for skinning and other things. Desktop Sidebar for displaying info, I normaly have it set to autohide (I love lots of desktop space).

Thing I love about BBLean is it is faster, more stable, and smaller than the windows shell (old clunky, used to forever but I am really happy I stopped). I had used windows' shell for about all my computer use until about a month ago. I had also done many customized things with the windows' shell using toolbars but gave up when it kept limiting my creativity . And it kept crashing (not totaly but the system menu would crash and not show the all the icons).

They say that sometimes windows' replacement shell are hard to install or require lots of setting up to use, well they might be right about most of them. But BBlean runs almost right after the install (well I just could not resist customizing just alittle ). I do use a addon for my system tray called SystemBarEx it replaces the BBLean's system tray which is alittle too tight in the customizing of it.

Skinning is really easy to do. There is a small program that edits the styles with a wysiwyg interface (changes appear on the fly).

I am leaving alot of info out because you can find most of it on BBlean's website http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/ .

BBLean uses BB4Win as it's base. And adds onto it nicely.

If you have any questions, I will try to answer them with the best of my limited knowledge .


Here is a screenshot of my Desktop (stunning, eh? ... Dont answer that !)




The screenshot has been resized and saved as a jpg so it is not a perfect display of my desktop.


By the way before I found BBLean I was thinking of trying to create my own shell replacement in PB and maybe sometime in the future I might try .

Whats you idle ram usage

Take a look at the screen shot

Here is a screenshot of my Desktop, stunning, eh?

Yeah. looks nice

@Truth_Seeker: Where can I get that outstanding image?

nice, still there is a problem! .. it's windows... j/k

well there pretty and all, but I've always been the type of, simple, shortest distants to anything major, GTK2 (linux) an absolute must or your app goes west, and that is about the limit

Can't see the point in making things pretty, it should be functional.

Having said that, they do look nice though, but not something I'd personally want to work with every day.

PB wrote:@Truth_Seeker: Where can I get that outstanding image?

You mean the background? That was not easy, I think it came from http://www.digitalblasphemy.com/dbhome.shtml , by the way I also have a program that changes the background every 3 min.

Inner wrote:nice, still there is a problem! .. it's windows... j/k

well there pretty and all, but I've always been the type of, simple, shortest distants to anything major, GTK2 (linux) an absolute must or your app goes west, and that is about the limit

Can't see the point in making things pretty, it should be functional.

Having said that, they do look nice though, but not something I'd personally want to work with every day.

I believe that also, but most of the programs I use, if not all of them, only run on Windows . Functionality is what I strive for first before beauty but it does not hurt to look at a colorful desktop . If someone told me that I could use all my programs on Linux without using a emulator, I would drop Windows any time. But until that day happens, I am still a slave to Microsoft.

If someone told me that I could use all my programs on Linux without using a emulator, I would drop Windows any time.

Me too!!!

I know my screen looks a bit graphic\util heavy, but i've made sure ive used programs and skins, etc.. that don't use much ram and cpu.

I love having a nice looking screen, for me it make work much more enjoyable.

Here's my desktop, although, not very original. I like to keep it clean and simple

@GeoTrail:

You might want to do something with that clutter of desktop icons.

1. You could make a toolbar on the system tray (where the start button is) and have it point to the desktop, then have the desktop hide all icons.

2. Make a separate toolbar on the top, left side, or right side and do the same as above.

3. Get a nice shell and use it instead (I recommend BBLean, but thats up to you) and have the desktop display in a menu.

I personaly have done all 3 and the 3rd one works the best for me.

dracflamloc wrote:Just curious, whats your idle ram usage is with all those third party "pretty" apps going?

Who cares? What is in the Girls folder, for f* sake?

Who cares? What is in the Girls folder, for f* sake?

He he, you saw that huh? Thats my own personal stash of pretty girl piccies! Nothing too naughty tho'!

@Truth_Seeker, Clutter of icons?
That is pretty much a fresh install hehehehe

Ok, how about this one?

Alot Better, looks good. By the way I thought KDE was only for Unix or Linux...

That's right. And if you look closely, you'll see that it's the new Mandriva