In need of "desktop icon folders"

[nite_monkey]

I guess that works for a title... anyways, as I mentioned in this topic, I am reinstalling windows this weekend, and I was hoping that someone knew of a program (hopefully freeware) that you could organize your desktop icons by putting them into folders or something, and then you have those folders on your desktop, and when you click on the folder, it would show the icons in that folder on the desktop in a grid view, and when you click on the folder again, the icons would hide back inside the folder... Is that confusing?




I hope that clears things up a tad, I would really like to use this for my icons if anyone knows of a program that does this.

[Nighted]

Closest thing I can think of that does this is QT TabBar.

AveDesk has some interesting features too....there may be some addon that can do this, but I'm not sure.

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[nite_monkey]

not sure exactly how QT Tabbar does what I am wanting, though it is cool to have tabs in the explorer, and the AveDesk kind of looks like an idea, not sure, I would have to download it to see if it fits my needs.

[Nighted]

Well, that's all I could think of....unless you want to use a dock with somethink like KkMenu....

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[mwang]

Powerpro does this, and it's freeware. It's a multi-purpose utility, and very powerful at that, so its learning curve could be a little steeper than more focused tools.

[tabletguy]

Perhaps I don't understand the original question, but if I read it literally, I already do that just with Windows. Right click on the desktop and select "New Folder". Put any number of icons (shortcuts) within it. Change the view to icon view (if you like pictures). That's it. All your shortcuts inside a folder.

For an added step, you can then MOVE your folder down to the task bar quick launch area. To do this, you have to RIGHT click and HOLD, drag the folder down over the quick launch area (the one next to the START button), look for a black vertical line/bar and then release it. The reason to look for the bar (may need to move left or right a little) is so that you don't drop it into another program. When you release, a menu will pop up asking if you want to copy or move. Select MOVE.

To add new items after moving to the quick launch area, just open it first.

This way, the folder is accessable even when other programs are running, without any need to minimize, etc.

If you don't have a quicklaunch area, you can right click on the bottom taskbar, go to "Toolbars", and click to enable it.

[nite_monkey]

I downloaded powerpro, and I will try it out when I re-install windows today or tomorrow, it sounds like it may do something like I want.

@tableguy, moving the folder to the quicklaunch area is similar to what I was wanting to do. I wanted to put the icons into folders, and then have a program to when ever I left click (or middle click, which ever) the icons would move out of the folder onto the desktop, and then when I click the folder again, the icons would go back into the folder.

[laughinglizard]

I downloaded powerpro, and I will try it out when I re-install windows today or tomorrow, it sounds like it may do something like I want.

@tableguy, moving the folder to the quicklaunch area is similar to what I was wanting to do. I wanted to put the icons into folders, and then have a program to when ever I left click (or middle click, which ever) the icons would move out of the folder onto the desktop, and then when I click the folder again, the icons would go back into the folder.

nite_monkey, are you looking for something like True Launch Bar?
http://www.truelaunchbar.com/

It's highly configurable, and if I understand what you want, this might work.
I do believe there's a 50% discount for donationcoder members.

[tomos]

what about mousers Launch Bar Commander
I've not used it myself but...

An article about moving Quick Launch bar around - sounds interesting (but I'm happy with mine so havent tried it)
again the comments prob more informative than the article
Reposition Windows XP’s Quick Launch toolbar

[mwang]

I downloaded powerpro, and I will try it out when I re-install windows today or tomorrow, it sounds like it may do something like I want.

In that case, you might want to sign up for the Powerpro user group on Yahoo, which is pretty active, with a lot of very experienced users who also provide some very good plugins.

http://www.pcrei.com/ppro/files/index.html also provides some good information. Powerpro's help is very thorough, too.

BTW, do you use Vista? There're some minor issues if you do.