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MetaProducts TrayIcon Pro 1.7.219
vixay:
Oops! I nearly forgot!
Vixay,
I tested out SlickRun. I thought it is really neat. Then I started to think...that it is just a glorified keyboard shortcut app with an added pain of having to find a little box to type into.
I played with it some more and I ended up concluding that it is both of the above. :D
It is more than a glorified short-cut handler because it allows one to make memorable keyboard combinations by tagging the key combos to a name of your own chosing.
That is a very nifty for me. It also makes it truly the first keyboard shortcut handler which I actually could handle trying to use everyday.
I give it :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup:
Thanks for telling me about it.
-WhiteLion (November 16, 2006, 04:37 AM)
--- End quote ---
Glad I could help, i'll append your rating to my post above...
The keylaunch screens look really good. How is it's memory consumption & all? any stats for us?
Furthermore is his trial version time-limited or what? I think that keylaunch could get a boost in popularity if it was mentioned to all the lifehackers our there... as they are only aware of Launchy right now (most don't know about FARR either). One thing though, it should work right out of the box for everybody, and customizing should be important only for Power Users, that will help with adoption.
WhiteLion:
KeyLaunch is now using the .net framework that has made it much more appealing to the eye but it comes with a cost. A signific one at that when it comes to memory usage. KeyLaunch 2 sits happily under 4 megs of memory while I have gotten KeyLaunch 3 up to almost 28 megs of usage. KL3 averages staying in the range of 17-22megs usage.
Xavier knows of this problem and will quickly fix it as soon has he figures out how to.
KeyLaunch 2 used to drop to it's knees when searching over large folders containing 25,000+ files.
That no longer happens with KeyLaunch 3. KeyLaunch 3 can handle scanning folders of such size while it continues with scanning others because now it is also multi-threaded.
KeyLaunch 3's searching engine has been greatly speeded up also. That combined with the ability to now easily direct it to look in specific areas should fully give it back the magic it once had.
Remember I've only had the privilege to test a nearly pre-alpha of KeyLaunch 3 to date.
Xavier is entering the Beta stage of development now. He is going to send me a early stable beta sometime today or tomorrowish to try.
I am still in disbelief that not only has he actually listened to my mere suggestions, that he has actually implemented them and has made such radical changes in KeyLaunch's basic architecture with the speed that rivals a rocket.
That dude sure has one loyal customer now and totally Rocks in my book!
However, I promise you guys that I will try my best to remain unbiased in my opinions on where KeyLaunch is concerned...although it may be hard. :P
WhiteLion:
I hope you all had nice Christmas.
Here's just a quickie update.
Xavier, the maker of KeyLaunch, has not yet sent me a early stable version of KeyLaunch. Nor has he corresponded with me since my last post. I think the Christmas rush had alot to do with that on both of our ends. I think I will drop him a line tonight.
I'm posting here now to tell you about a new alternative which I just found last night for clearing my desktop of all those ugly, yet so handy icons/shortcuts.
Last night, while surfing, I managed to some how run into <A href="http://www.idesksoft.com/>DesktopIconToy</A>. After I installed it and started it, it promptly messed up my icon arrangement, so be forewarned! Later when I got un-mad at it, I started to play with it and soon found myself becoming intrigued with it.
I found it offers more configuration abilities than my old and trusted and heavily used solution, <A href="http://www.sillysot.com/"%20 class="postlink"%20target="_blank">Iconoid</A>. It seems to be extremely more snapper to show the icons while also staying under Iconiod normal average memory usage. That gives it straight up pluses in my book.
It also has the added sweet ass ability to hide icon text until moused over.
<A href="http://www.idesksoft.com/screenshort.html">More ScreenShots</A>
What cool things could you do with Desktop Icon Toy?
Dance Desktop Icons
You can drag and drop desktop icons to make them run around the desktop, and double click the desktop to stop the running icons. According to your drag and drop time, the desktop icons will run with different speed, more quickly, more speed.
Hover Effects
You can add visual effects when mouse hover desktop icons, like dance icon, shake icon text and blink icon text.
Icon Size
You can change the desktop icon size to 48x48, 64x64 or 128x128.
Automatically Hide Desktop Icons
You can automatically hide desktop icons when mouse off the desktop or desktop icon. This can give you a pair of bright eyes to see your beautiful wallpaper.
Arrange Desktop Icons
You can arrange desktop icons by many shapes, such as:
Clock (all the icons will be aligned as a clock showing the exact hour)
Circle (creates a circle in the middle of the screen)
Cross (creates a cross in the middle of the screen)
Around (all the icons will be positioned around the desktop)
And more...
If you like, you can also:
Arrange the icons precisely with <CTRL + Arrow Key>.
Add animation effects when arrange desktop icons.
Configure to automatically re-layout when change screen resolution, adding/deleting icons.
Customize layout order (eg: place "My Computer" to last one).
Sort icon by name (Ascending or Descending) .
Remove Icon Texts
You can remove the classic ugly text of desktop icons, optional, instead of a cool pop-up tooltip. The whole desktop will become neat and tidy.
Lock Desktop Icons
Have you ever need to place some desktop icons in a specific place for better working, but always by careless or windows move them to back? Use this function, you needn't care this problem again. You can also add animation effects for it.
More Funny Things
You can remove all desktop icons, and only keep the icon texts.
You can change desktop icons to small mode, all the icons will become small, and icon texts will be placed on the right of icons.
Other Features
Remove desktop icon shortcut overlay.
Save and restore desktop icon layout.
Change icon background or text color, and you can even make the background of icons transparent.
System Requirements
Windows NT4/2000/XP/2003 operating system
--- End quote ---
My top 3 criteria for these icon hiding programs until moused over are:
Restorability(reliability of) of lost icon positions
Memory + CPU usage
Configurability and ease of use
Iconiod has a bug that really bothers me. It stores it's saved icon location file in a temp folder. I dump my temp files regularly thus lose Iconiod saved positions file usually when I most need it. I have tried saving this file to another location and it does not work when re-inserted.
I do not yet know if DesktopIconToy suffers with this flaw yet, since I have only been using it for a tad over 24 hours now.
DesktopIconToy is giving me a problem with renaming files/shortcuts. While doing so my cursor goes erratic along with the file name text.
Iconiod renaming files/shortcuts are done with normal ease, but the cursor needs to stay positioned on your desktop.
Iconiod is freeware
DeskTopIcon Toy Co$ts 20 bucks US.
I really like DeskTopIcon Toy's ability to not only hide my shortcuts but their text too, until moused over.
Is it snappiness and the above mentioned ability worth shelling 20 bucks out for? I don't know yet.
If it can retain memory of icon positioning then maybe it will be worth an investment.....if I can figure out how to stop the strange effect it does when I renaming desktop files.
cranioscopical:
Thanks for taking the time to present this information. :Thmbsup:
Darwin:
Whitelion - whatever happened with Keylaunch and the beta testing? I just checked and Keylaunch is still at v.2 on the website... two years on :o
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