Are there TWO Desktops?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Terry Pinnell
  • Start date Start date
Twayne said:
Twayne, Swifty:

Thanks both, grateful for those solid follow-ups.

For opening my ALL folder I just r-click 'ALL' and choose Open. Apart
from being marginally faster than opening it via Explorer, that will
help me get in the habit of using this ALL toolbar to the maximum!

Once ALL is open I can
- add top level subfolders (e.g. 'Movies')
- add sub-folders to those (e.g. 'Video Editors')
- add shortcuts to those (e.g. 'Movie Maker')

A d-click to open the individual contents of ALL seems intuitive, as
well as faster than R-click > Open. But I suppose there's a sound
reason why that doesn't apply to ALL itself.

Of course, I now have major duplication. I can access an XP folder or
file by several methods:
- Explorer
- Stiletto menus of various levels, which appear when I nudge the top
screen edge
- My new ALL toolbar
- File > Open from the native application

And for the time being at least I'm populating ALL with *program*
shortcuts too. So, for example, there are entries like
ALL > Movies > Movie SW > MovieMaker
ALL > Graphics > Graphics SW > IrfanView
as well as
ALL > Movies > Movie files > FRAPS output
ALL > Graphics > Photos > Holidays

Therefore I am of course duplicating the function of the Start menu.
That's what I've been doing for years with Stiletto and it seems to
give me faster access to the frequently-used stuff. But it does go
against the grain a bit to duplicate stuff.

I've now locked the taskbar, although I'm not yet sure whether I'll be
tolerant of any restrictions that will impose.

I've also added the Desktop toolbar, directly to the right of ALL,
both being to the left of my 17 tray icons. (I tried just including it
in ALL, but that gave me a permanently open Desktop folder, which
isn't as useful.) And for now at least I've cleared my desktop
entirely. If I get bored with its soothing uniform blue, I'll
probably fire up a neat little program I've enjoyed in the past called
AWC (Automatic Wallpaper Changer) from
http://awc.smurphy.co.uk/
Click to expand...

lol, have fun, I'll bet you'll have the most interesting desktop in town
at least! If I forget to warn them, guests can feel pretty lost in
front of my computer<g>.
Actually, I find it to be a handy setup. I have duplicates too, but
when they make sense it's no big deal. e.g. both my "graphics" and
"editors" folders will have PSP in it. My "scanner" folder has them
plus twain, OCR, OmniPage, etc., just so like things are grouped. I
think it makes sense. Whatever fits your situation best is the right one
for you; that's why "ymmv" exists<g>. Anything that makes me dig more
than two or three levels into a folder structure goes into my toolbars
if it's something I use much. Like Event Viewer, Disk Cleanup, Command
Prompt, things like that.

Good luck,

Twayne
 
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