"desktop" box Thread last updated on 2003-11-15 23:20:39

Posted by member 81497 on 2003-11-14 13:58:52

Is there anyways to make a small floating box that i could add shortcuts to? like a 350x300 box that is moveable and just floats ontop?

Posted by member 1340 on 2003-11-14 14:15:32 link

u mean u want shortcuts added on the fly or u want just shortcuts inside a floating type thingie.
For the latter u can simply do that by using the lsbox module. if u want the former.... i will tell then how to do that... will take considerable amount typing. :)

Posted by member 81497 on 2003-11-14 14:22:56 link

just shortcuts inna floating box, i find it more convenient to have shortcuts right in front of me, because some of my programs dont have start>programs>shortcut so to run those progs i now have to go through file manager and nav to the folder, i want some kind of desktop, but i think it would be cooler to have a moveable box that holds the shortcuts

Posted by member 7223 on 2003-11-14 17:04:38 link

But the real question is the following:
Do you want a kind of box that old shortcuts you have already defined in some rc file or whatever; or do you want a box where you can drop files into it to automatically add them to this box ?

There are difficulties and advantages to both methods...

Posted by member 81497 on 2003-11-14 18:25:02 link

im new at this, but from the looks of it, it would work nothing like explorers desktop, id have to define all shortcuts as i added them, well like you know the theme "austerity" it has a desktop with all my icons, is there anyway to call that same desktop into a box instead of on the main desktop? if that makes sence..

Posted by member 7223 on 2003-11-14 23:41:36 link

You can use deskfolders to display folder's stuff in a static "box". I mean a simple background you can't move or resize... and I guess it's not what you're searching.
Alternatively, if you want a "box" with stuff (let's says "icons") you can drag around - something like a real "box" - then, you have to do everything by hand, which couldn't be very easy for a newbie (and for middle-aged user, too).

Conclusion, if you are interrested in making such a "box" you have to, first, answer my previous question and, two, be familiar with skinbox and mzscript.

Posted by member 81497 on 2003-11-15 09:58:17 link

I want a box where i can drop the shortcuts in to the box, if this will be pretty hard for a newb, and theres not like any code laying around that can do this is there anyway to just enable the desktop?

Posted by member 71746 on 2003-11-15 13:24:08 link

Three HUGE shortcomings in the current state of litestep:

1) There is no desktop module that supports drag-n-drop functionality, you need to rig up some complicated scripting and even then there's only a certain portion of your desktop that you can drag files onto.

2) There are no quicklaunch modules that fully support drag-n-drop functionality. You can use LSLnkMenu but it doesn't work very well and it doesn't resize properly when you add new icons, and it's a huge pain the ass to set it up for it's limited functionality.

3) There are no desktop OR quicklaunch modules that properly support box-hooks.

I guess the developpers of those modules either left drag'n'drop and hooking out due to oversirght, or they figure "anyone who uses litestep should be smart enough and have enough free time to be able to create custom icons and add coding to the config files for their shortcuts..."

I'd love to have something like DeskFolders that was hookable... Frankly I think any module that has any kind of display should be hookable.. No need for Bang or Hotkey modules to hook, but all the others should ;)

Man, it'd be nice if there was a centralized group of people that handled all the module development as well as core dev.. that way something like updating all modules to support hooking would be a somewhat feasible task ;) Sigh... My kingdom for infinite labourers with infinite resources and talent!

Posted by member 81301 on 2003-11-15 21:17:42 link

Ah, seems z0r0 had the same sort of idea as I was hoping for. Back in explorer there was the nifty little thing you could do where you make a toolbar out of any folder and then float it or stick it to a side of teh screen or even make it into a popup menu on the taskbar. I would have liked to have that functionality replicated here, but I guess it's not available right now.

How difficult would it be to have a bar that wasn't moveable (other than by changing co-ordinates in an rc file and recycling) but which contained whatever was in a certain folder? Sort of like the Real Quicklaunch that is offered as a popup in Austerity, but as a bar or immovable box?

Posted by member 68410 on 2003-11-15 22:55:56 link

may be you could use this program called Shortpopup, its supossed to give you a menu with all the links (or progs or folders) that are inside certain folder

Posted by member 7223 on 2003-11-15 23:20:39 link

Nowadays, it's not very hard to make a moveable, resizeable "box" that contain "shortcuts", that support drag'n'drop; but:
- it's very easy to have that box only display text (no icons)
- it's easy, too, to have that box display bitmaps instead (or plus) text; but it need user to drop one file to tell the box where the exe is and another file to tell the box which image to display. I guess it's not very user friendly but it allow user defined bitmap size, transparency, etc...
- it's a little bit harder (but not too much) to have that box display text and/or icons bur this only works if the file droped is a .exe file, not a .lnk one. The main disavantage with this is that the icon size is always 32