[Flipside]

I was just looking over my Desktop, which is comprised of several folders named things like 'Games' and 'Utilities' which I've put the shortcuts to each program in, the idea obviously being to keep the desktop non-cluttered.

However, it occured to me that it would be far more visually friendly if you could, say, click on your game icon and, rather than open a folder, get windows to clear the desktop and replace the Icons with the ones in the Games folder (together with 'Return to Desktop' option of course), so that your desktop becomes the file list rather than opening a seperate window to view them. I think this is not dissimilar to the way MacOS displays stuff.

I'm pretty inexperienced at this side of Windows, but I was wondering if anyone knew of a program that could do something like this or whether Windows already came with something similar (it's surprising what little abilities lurk hidden in the Windows system).

I know it's only a visual thing, folders work perfectly well, but I just thought it would feel more 'organised' to do it that way.

[aldo_14]

I was just looking over my Desktop, which is comprised of several folders named things like 'Games' and 'Utilities' which I've put the shortcuts to each program in, the idea obviously being to keep the desktop non-cluttered.

However, it occured to me that it would be far more visually friendly if you could, say, click on your game icon and, rather than open a folder, get windows to clear the desktop and replace the Icons with the ones in the Games folder (together with 'Return to Desktop' option of course), so that your desktop becomes the file list rather than opening a seperate window to view them. I think this is not dissimilar to the way MacOS displays stuff.

I'm pretty inexperienced at this side of Windows, but I was wondering if anyone knew of a program that could do something like this or whether Windows already came with something similar (it's surprising what little abilities lurk hidden in the Windows system).

I know it's only a visual thing, folders work perfectly well, but I just thought it would feel more 'organised' to do it that way.

Offhand, maybe using a clickable HTML backdrop?  (simplest thing that comes to mind, although you'd want to conjure up some background logic to maybe fetch icons automatically)

[Col. Fishguts]

Is 'Active Desktop' incorporated in XP, or did that vanish together with Win98 ?

You could probably abuse it to do what you want.

[Flipside]

Hmmm.. I was thinking maybe using an Active Desktop of some sort, which might be coaxed into doing the job using HTML. It's probably a bit more effort than the results are worth, but it might be interesting as nothing more than an exercise in doing it...

[Fury]

1. Move your shortcut folders elsewhere, like C: root.
2. Click Windows taskbar with secondary mouse button, select toolbars > new toolbar, select your shortcut folder.
3. Click Windows taskbar with secondary mouse button, untick "lock the taskbar".
4. Drag the folder from your taskbar to your desktop, or you can keep it in the taskbar. You can also move the new toolbar window to any side of your desktop and it becomes your second taskbar, which you can then put on auto-hide (with always on top).

Edit: Put the three different positions into same image...

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Flipside]

Awesome! Thanks for that Fury, it'll do the job just fine

I hate a cluttered desktop, it makes you feel disorganised before you've even started working on anything.

[Dysko]

I had to put my icons in folders too, 207 icons are too much for a single monitor...

[Fury]

Or you could switch back to the classic Windows start-menu and make use of it, see attachment.
Personally I don't need that many shortcuts, so the newer Start-menu suits my shortcut needs.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[IPAndrews]

Personally I don't need that many shortcuts, so the newer Start-menu suits my shortcut needs.

Yes why do you need two different ways to do the same thing?

[Fury]

The classic start menu shortcuts were there just for the show.

[Ulala]

I hate a cluttered desktop, it makes you feel disorganised before you've even started working on anything.

I'm exactly the same way.

[Descenterace]

On those rare occasions I boot Windows, I just use the Desktop menu as a second Start menu. One folder for each game type.

There is no excuse for 100+ icons on the desktop...

[CP5670]

I don't use the desktop at all. Aside from a few things I use very often (which are in the start menu), I just load up the exes directly through a file manager program.

[WMCoolmon]

I was just looking over my Desktop, which is comprised of several folders named things like 'Games' and 'Utilities' which I've put the shortcuts to each program in, the idea obviously being to keep the desktop non-cluttered.

However, it occured to me that it would be far more visually friendly if you could, say, click on your game icon and, rather than open a folder, get windows to clear the desktop and replace the Icons with the ones in the Games folder (together with 'Return to Desktop' option of course), so that your desktop becomes the file list rather than opening a seperate window to view them. I think this is not dissimilar to the way MacOS displays stuff.

I'm pretty inexperienced at this side of Windows, but I was wondering if anyone knew of a program that could do something like this or whether Windows already came with something similar (it's surprising what little abilities lurk hidden in the Windows system).

I know it's only a visual thing, folders work perfectly well, but I just thought it would feel more 'organised' to do it that way.

What the hell are you doing, man? And where can I get some?

I practically had that same, exact, idea 2 days ago - except I was thinking of writing a program to change the icons in the quick launch bar to suit different tasks. I've never heard of anyone doing something like that. And then this just pops up today...

So all I want to do now...is start wearing a tinfoil hat.

[Flipside]

LOL That's spooky. It just occured to me yesterday whilst going through yet another wave of cleaning my Desktop that it seemed a bit odd to have to open up a seperate window whenever you wanted to view files, after all, the main purpose of an OS is to allow you to access your data, I've tried playing with multi-layer desktops etc, but they always seem far too complex for the results achieved, so I thought 'Well, why not treat the desktop as though it were an Explorer window?'

[Taristin]

I keep my desktop completely devoid of icons, and instead put the links to the programs I use in my start button... like they're supposed to be

[Davros]

make a games folder on the start menu and put the shortcuts in there
you can create a gamwes folder on your hdd and put them in there no need for them to clutter up your start menu with
uninstall + readme shortcuts

[Ghostavo]

Holy ****!

[redsniper]

you need more games

[Davros]

thankfully i have more games

what i need is more hard drive space....