Sunday, December 27, 2009
20:23 by FoxTwo
I have no complaints about Windows 7 actually. None of my software "broke" due to Windows 7. As a general rule, if it runs fine on Vista, it will run fine on Windows 7. There's a couple of minor tweaks I have to do to get MSN to work like it did in Vista and XP, for example - the new taskbar in Win7 doesn't really play nice with everything. Oh MSN works fine, it just didn't worked like it did in the older OSes.
The quirks of the new taskbar is also my one and only complaint about Windows 7. Microsoft has "removed" the quick launch bar from it, and encourages you to use the new "technology", of "pinning" your often-used apps onto the tasbar. From there, the icons will show you "jumplists" of your most-often used files with that app, and hence you can launch your stuff faster.
Well excuse me, I still liked how my apps are in the quick launch bar. So, I searched around for a hack to get my quick launch bar back. All was fine and good, until I discovered that if I had the language bar docked onto the taskbar as well, the hacked quick-launch bar disappeared after every reboot. So I had to choose which one I wanted, and I really wanted BOTH!
So I went looking for application launchers.
The first one I found which I liked, was RocketDock. I'll let the video below speak for itself.
Cool eh? Yeah that's what I thought too, and proceeded to install and configure it. It's pretty cool actually, with animations and other effects. Yes, you can minimise your windows onto RocketDock too... you can actually think of RocketDock as a Taskbar replacement actually. As seen in the video, if you have a movie playing and you minimised it to RocketDock, when you hover over the app, you can see the movie still playing in that small tiny window. I started to add icons onto RocketDock until it stretched all the way across the screen.
Then I ran into a small snag - I have more icons than my monitor is able to display, and RocketDock doesn't scroll! Damned! So, some of my apps which I have on RocketDock can't be accessed. That kinda defeats the purpose of an app launcher.
So I decided to go looking for another one, one which at least allows me to organise my icons. At the very least, it should scroll so I can access my stuff! Thus I found sTabLauncher.
Compared to RocketDock, sTabLauncher isn't as "cool". You can't minimise your working windows onto it, for one thing. But what *is* cool, for me anyway, is that it has TABS~! Tabs, to organise my huge amount of icons! Ok, so it doesn't need to scroll, but I can create tabs and organise them according to what they do.
So I have "Internet", "Games", "Media" and "Others" tabs... and all my icons are sitting nicely on a (relatively) short app launcher bar, but the total number of icons is actually more than what I had on RocketDock.
Now I finally have my "replacement Quick Launch bar" which Windows 7 removed, and still keep my language bar docked onto the taskbar.
Update 28 Dec 2009
RocketDock and sTabLauncher decided to start behaving erratically. I have now switched over to ObjectDock and hope all goes well with it.
20:23 by FoxTwo
Quick Launch Replacements On Windows 7
I have no complaints about Windows 7 actually. None of my software "broke" due to Windows 7. As a general rule, if it runs fine on Vista, it will run fine on Windows 7. There's a couple of minor tweaks I have to do to get MSN to work like it did in Vista and XP, for example - the new taskbar in Win7 doesn't really play nice with everything. Oh MSN works fine, it just didn't worked like it did in the older OSes.
The quirks of the new taskbar is also my one and only complaint about Windows 7. Microsoft has "removed" the quick launch bar from it, and encourages you to use the new "technology", of "pinning" your often-used apps onto the tasbar. From there, the icons will show you "jumplists" of your most-often used files with that app, and hence you can launch your stuff faster.
Well excuse me, I still liked how my apps are in the quick launch bar. So, I searched around for a hack to get my quick launch bar back. All was fine and good, until I discovered that if I had the language bar docked onto the taskbar as well, the hacked quick-launch bar disappeared after every reboot. So I had to choose which one I wanted, and I really wanted BOTH!
So I went looking for application launchers.
RocketDock
The first one I found which I liked, was RocketDock. I'll let the video below speak for itself.
Cool eh? Yeah that's what I thought too, and proceeded to install and configure it. It's pretty cool actually, with animations and other effects. Yes, you can minimise your windows onto RocketDock too... you can actually think of RocketDock as a Taskbar replacement actually. As seen in the video, if you have a movie playing and you minimised it to RocketDock, when you hover over the app, you can see the movie still playing in that small tiny window. I started to add icons onto RocketDock until it stretched all the way across the screen.
Then I ran into a small snag - I have more icons than my monitor is able to display, and RocketDock doesn't scroll! Damned! So, some of my apps which I have on RocketDock can't be accessed. That kinda defeats the purpose of an app launcher.
So I decided to go looking for another one, one which at least allows me to organise my icons. At the very least, it should scroll so I can access my stuff! Thus I found sTabLauncher.
sTabLauncher
Compared to RocketDock, sTabLauncher isn't as "cool". You can't minimise your working windows onto it, for one thing. But what *is* cool, for me anyway, is that it has TABS~! Tabs, to organise my huge amount of icons! Ok, so it doesn't need to scroll, but I can create tabs and organise them according to what they do.
So I have "Internet", "Games", "Media" and "Others" tabs... and all my icons are sitting nicely on a (relatively) short app launcher bar, but the total number of icons is actually more than what I had on RocketDock.
Now I finally have my "replacement Quick Launch bar" which Windows 7 removed, and still keep my language bar docked onto the taskbar.
Update 28 Dec 2009
RocketDock and sTabLauncher decided to start behaving erratically. I have now switched over to ObjectDock and hope all goes well with it.
