Plug-in Architecture for the standard Windows Desktop...

Tags: Tech Geek

Wednesday, February 25, 2004 10:34:00 AM

Well I made the switch back to using the Explorer.exe shell. Man how I hate this shell.

I almost exclusively use GeoShell, but these days I'm getting some really messed up interface issues (window painting) when I really hit this machine hard (some huge solutions in VS.NET, Sharpreader, Outlook, Traillian, etc..). You would think with a 1.8ghz processor with a 1/2G of RAM one wouldnt have these issues, but oh well.

So who can tell me how can I change something as simple as the format for the clock in the Systray?

These Quick Launch Tool bars look handy. Why hasnt Microsoft realized the plug-in architecture for its desktop yet? Why cant I have some winamp integration or a Volume control slider...Why cant I make my own plug-ins?

IIRC: The funny thing is that the original author of Geoshell worked at Microsoft and used it to help develop Explorer.exe.

Maybe Longhorn, will wait for Longhorn, will hope for Longhorn....

3 Comments

  • Scott said

    You use a 3rd party shell on your work machine? How does it handle?

    So far, all of the 3rd party shells I've tried have had performance issues. I've only tried two though, Blackbox and another whose name I can't remember.

  • Rob Chartier said

    Scott, Ive used GeoShell for years now as a complete replacement of Explorer.exe. The earlier versions had some issues but recently things are getting much better with it. Other than I think its directly related to the windows painting issue. Im giving the normal shell a run through to see if it does the same thing.

    Derick, arnt explorer bars for IE5 only? Ill look into them for IE6 and my desktop environment.

    Now I need to figure out how to get rid of my desktop. I hate the desktop idea. I dont want any icons on it at all. Useless.


    Thanks for your comments.

  • Derick Bailey said

    I'm running IE6 on Windows XP and on Windows 2000 and I've used quite a few Explorer Bars... including that Google Deskbar that I linked to, and a "Cmd" explorer bar that I downloaded and was written in C#.NET...

    As for clearing your desktop: WinXP allows you to do this fairly easily. earlier versions, don't.

    By the way: I agree that Explorer should have a more accessible API and should be easier to develop custom extensions, etc. I also checked out Geoshell and while I love the idea - I have an impossible time getting it to work. I couldn't change skins with the "change skin" buttons that were provided - I had to manually find the folder that Geoshell was installed in and find the script to change with. I also couldn't get any kind of folder explorer to work, without it opening the default Explorer desktop first... I'm going to be looking around on the Geoshell site and see if these are known issues or not. (fyi - this happened on both my Win2K and WinXP machine).

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