Some problems I have with object dock

First post!! :)

from WinCustomize Forums
Hello everyone, i'm brand new to this whole customisation thing, i have Object dock 1.04 plus, and it's all good. Anyway here's some of the problems I have with it, i hope some of you guys can help me out a bit, or at least share the same problems that I have.

I have 3 docks in total, i'll go through each one individual and list the problems i encounter, although small, some of them irritate me to no end, must be the perfectionist dna strand in me

1)Dock on the left with all my regular stuff, like my drives, internet connections, document folders etc etc.
Problems:
Sometimes even when i move the mouse away from the dock the magnification remains, small issue, but it is still irritating to see it still swollen like a balloon when i'm not even near it. Design flaw? or just me?

When i insert the My Computer icon into it, (not a shortcut), since i want to be able to right click it and bring up the properties so i can access device manager etc. I did this to remove the My Computer icon off the desktop. There is a permanent little black triangle on the left side of the icon, which seems to mean that the program is always running. To test this i checked a box in the dock settings which says if the shorcut is running bring program to foreground only. When i do open it, then try to open it again so taht it will come to the foreground, nothing happens. Sometimes i think object dock just closes without warning *shrug* weird, i know.

2)Tabbed (drawer) docked at bottom, tabs are main, taskbar, www, apps, office
Problems:
I've set the tabbed dock to ALWAYS BE ON TOP, yet it does not happen this way as consistent as i hoped. Sometimes when i open shorcuts (MAXIMISED) on the left dock for eg. My Documents folder, it hides the tab dock. It only happens in maximised windows obviously. It happens periodically with the maximising of different windows as well. To semi-correct this problem, i'm forced to creating a hot spot at the bottom, to bring it back up. Annoying, since i prefer to have to click my the dock/tabs to bring it up.

3)Tray dock, autohide, bottom right corner
Problems:
I was under the impression (corect me if i'm wrong), that when i hold the mouse button on docks it is supposed to allow icon change, however, what it does, is grow my tray dock. Let me explain this more clearly. I have an icon size setting of 16 pixels, no magnification, very simple. However when i move the mouse on it and whole the button it grows to like 48 pixels. The thing is the dock setting does not change, it still says 16 pixels, but noticeably much bigger. TO correc thsi problem i have to reclick the tab on the 16 pixel mark, and it reverts for itself. Talk about weird.

That's all the problems i've encountered with docks so far. Now i have a list of suggestions/complaints about the design of the program itself. Hopefully you all can bring me into the light on these things, since i'm new and all

1)Is there no way to put different icon settings for each dock? I find this a very big *miss* I want a big font on my left magnification dock, and obviously very small font for my tray, yet I can only put one font setting for everything. Another thing, why no font customisation? No colour or anything, just size, bold and italic?

2)Flyout menus need to be able customised i think. not much, but i should at least be able to customise the automatic speed of the scroll between programs, as how far they come out etc. Little things i think, will help it out.

3)More tab customisation can help i think. I've seen some docks from people here in teh (show us your dock thread), and they've done many impressive things with their docks that I haven't been able to reproduce some using the settings available, either i need more creativity to understand what they did, or they have some object dock addition which i don't have hehehe.

4)Limited Positioning. I think this is one of the biggest drawbacks of object docks. THe only dock which seems to give 'free' positiong (correct me if i'm wrong) is the tabbed docks. I was able to move it around the screen, and put it where i want. My left dock on the other hand, is jsut restricted to the cardinal points. What if i want in between somewhere. In other words, i would like all my docks draggable to anywhere on the desktop, and then be able to lock it into place. I would also like to be able to put my dock at an angle instead of jsut a straight line, but that's just me pushing it

5)Customisation improvement in general. Little things like being able to customise each tab in a dock independently to the rest of tabs, like making that tab mnagnify while the other doesn't etc. I think such little things will improve object dock quite a bit, but that's just me. There's a list that i have (i'm greedy i guess haha) i won't list them here though

Anyway, I'd like to thank stardock, for a nifty little program, it's quite good, i'm happy with it actually, havne't experienced detrimental problems like computer crashes etc. So i'm thankful for the stability etc. I'm looking foward to additional builds or updates in the future

Some other unrelated notes
How do i remove the recycle bin off the destop?

IS there a way to change the SIZE of desktop icons, but not change the size of icons in every window that is set on the view items at icon size?

There's a coloured background fuzz of many behind my desktop icons which does not want to go, what do I do?

On one of my windows xp accounts, i can comfortable view 1280x1200 wallpaper in 1024x768 view, but in another account it drops the resolution badly, to the point where i rather just use 1024x768 wallpaper period. how do i fix this?

How do i convert pngs -> ico?

is it ok to post my desktop with my docks i this thread? or put a link to it?

thanks in advance!
docks
7,524 views 25 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Wow, a lot of good ideas.

I would suggest updating to version 1.1 to start.

You can turn of the "running indicators" in the Dock Config Panel for that dock to remove any permanent black triangles. I have seen the same thing occur, but have not looked in Task Manager or services yet to see if it is running in the background which would indicate an OS use, and not an ObjectDock bug.

Normal dock positioning has been in the request box for some time now, and hopefully they can do that one.

Recycle Bin can be altered via registry - there may be another way, but I don't recall at the moment. I can look at my notes later when I get home and will post again if I find anything.

Desktop icon changes can be made via "Display Properties>Appearance tab>Advanced button> select icon in Item drop down>click "OK", then "Apply".

Convert PNG to ICO with a program designed for it such as Icon Developer, Icon Workshop, Icon-to-Any (free to try), or others - do a Google search and you should see these (Icon Developer can be found at Stardock).

There is a start, perhaps others will post as well.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Link <-- AveIconifier2 (for converting ICO's to PNG's and vice versa)

Do you have DesktopX on the user with the smooth wallpaper? It enhances full screen anti-aliasing, so the walls get smoothed out.

You can change the desktop Icon size using IconX (a stardock prog that comes with ObjectDesktop)

Recycle Bin: Cant be removed unless ALL your icons are hidden on the desktop.
ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thanks guys for the help.

Post what you can about that, Corky
I encountered another problem, which may not be object dock, but a problem nonetheless. MSN messenger 7.0 beta refuses to be visible in my tray dock. It's there, I just can't see it, the only way for me to get it out is through ctrl+alt+del.

The hotspots are unprecise i think. When i move the mouse to see my tray dock, the tabbed dock (hotspot at centre bottom) comes up, it's a bother hehe.

Is there a way to just put a regular png to a docklet, eg the start docklet. For the life of me, i'm unable to put a window icon i downloaded specifically for that purpose. Help

I know hot change teh size of my dektop icons, that's not the problem. The problem is, that changing the size of it there, influences the size of ALL icons throughout windows, as long as the windows open are set to the 'icon view'. By that i mean, you can view window icons as thumbnails, filmstrip, tiles, icons, etc. Once the view is on icons. They will have that size. I like fairly big desktop icons 48x48-64x64. Everything in windows will have that icon size. I want to be able to change just those on the desktop

other notes:
i have icondeveloper as well as desktopx, i don't use desktopX though, it's too much for me hehe, object dock suits me just fine. I'm not sure if i have iconX, but i'll check.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Is there a way to just put a regular png to a docklet, eg the start docklet. For the life of me, i'm unable to put a window icon i downloaded specifically for that purpose. Help


Right click on the item, select Dock Entry Properties then Change Image. You can then change it to anything you want.

IconX sounds like the trick for making all desktop icons bigger, but not affecting other ones.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
How do i remove the recycle bin off the destop?


TweakUI will allow you to hide your recycle bin icon from your desktop. It's a small program, part of Powertoys for XP. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
To remove the Recycle Bin from the desktop in Windows XP, set a group policy as follows:

At a commmand prompt type: gpedit.msc

Hit "Enter" - this opens the Group Policy dialog.

Go to "User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Desktop"

Double-click the "Remove Recycle Bin From Desktop" policy and select "Enable".

Close out and reboot computer.

Note - Recycler is still actively accepting deleted files. To view contents of Recycle Bin, open "My Computer" and go to "Tools > Folder Options > View tab" > select "Show hidden files and folders" > deselect "Hide protected operating system files" > click "Apply".

You can now view Recycle Bin at "C:\Recycler" (where "C" is the letter drive).

To restore Recycle Bin, just reverse procedure and select "Not Configured" in the policy, reboot computer.

Have fun.
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Perhaps you could employ the help of a young priest and an old priest...
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
LOL that was funny shotgun989

Thanks a lot Corky Q. Seems like noone else can help me with my other questions though, bummer. I recently got iconpackager. I must say i don't unerstand it at all. I've downloaded a lot of icon packages but i can't get to load them. First problem i have with some is that they keep telling me that I can't laod icons in classic mode (something about a limitation of the OS and not icon packager), the thing is, that i'm NOT in classic mode. How stupid is that. The otehr thing is i downloaded many icon packages, but i can't load any icon packages that don't have teh stand alone icons. Meaning if i downlaod a pack with just the theme file and some other file (and i have many that come this way), i can't use the theme. WTH to do. Can i extract icp files? I'm just lost
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
hotnikkelz,

Start IconPackager and go to "Tools > select Restore all Icons > click OK", wait a few seconds until the dialog closes, then start IconPackager again and go to "Tools > select Restore all Cursors > select Rebuild Icon Cache > click OK".

Unload any customization software running including IconPackager and WindowBlinds

Return XP to the default theme using "Display Properties > Themes tab > select Windows XP in theme drop down list > click Apply" (if Apply button is not available, just select another option, then select Windows XP again). Go to the Desktop tab and click the Customize button, under the Desktop icons click the "Restore Default" button.

Right click taskbar and select properties. Go to the Start Menu tab and select "Start menu" then click "Apply" (if it is already selected - select Classic Start Menu, Apply, reselect Start menu, Apply).

Click the "Customize" button to the right of the Start menu listing and on the General tab, select "Large icons", on the Advanced tab - select "Display as a link" for the following: Control Panel, My Computer, My Documents, My Music, and My Pictures. Select "Don't Display this item" for the following: Network Connections, and Administrative System Tools - click "OK", then "Apply".

XP should now be restored to default settings.

Uninstall Icon Packager and reboot machine.

Go to "C:\Program Files\Stardock" folder if it exists (where "C" is the drive letter), and delete any IconPackager folder found there.

Now download and reinstall IconPackager and reboot computer.

I have not used the shareware version, but if it comes with any prepackaged icon packs - start IconPackager and apply one of these packages. This will tell you whether the program was installed correctly.

Note - as you stated, many of the Icon Packages come with two files in the ".zip" after download. Usually you will have the IconPackager file (box with a red "I" in it) and an Icon Library (".icl" file). You are supposed to double-click the IconPackager file to install the package - which should start IconPackager and allow you to select and apply the package. Note - this action also writes the contents of the downloaded file to "C:\Program Files\Stardock\IconPackager\Themes" folder (where "C" is the letter drive).

The Icon Library can be viewed with the IconPackager "Icon Explorer" feature (this may be deactivated in the shareware version). You can also view and work with Icon Libraries with "IconDeveloper" by Stardock, and "Icon Workshop" by Axialis, as well as number of other programs designed to create icons.

Alternatively, You can view and select icon images individually by using XP's built in capability of changing an icon image via the icon's properties dialog > Customize tab > Change icon > Browse button > select "All files" in the "Files of Type" list > navigate to the "Stardock\IconPackager\Themes" folder and select the package folder - if it includes an ".icl" file, you can select it and hit Open - this will show the contents.

There is no "Extraction" method similar to a ".zip" file for the IconPackager file, it is a file read by the program.

I apologize for the long story here, and I hope it helps.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
WHOA! thanks man, I haven't tested it out yet, but a big thanks. I think I'll have some more questions to bother you with soon hehe
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ok, got some bad news, and fairly good news, and some questions haha
Bad news is, that icon packager refuses to work effectively for me, I've done the isntructions twice, and they stil like to tell me that i'm in classic mode for some reason. It's ok though, i use iconphile instead. The bit on the the icon explorer thing that iconpackager came with is awesome. I've been exporting all the icons from themes i downloaded yay. I apply them for myself manually instead of this iconpackager.

Questions
Is it possible to alter how programs minimise to my tabbed dock. For instance when i open a window say, a folder of some sort, it's represented by a default Cobalt theme folder. When i minimise there's a default icon for the minimised version as well. Can I change this? I would like to able to put an icon for the programs opened, and the icons used to represent them when minimised. I'll post my desktop in this thread soon it's quite simple but i think i'm pleased with the look so far
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
hotnikkelz,

Sorry to hear the issue with Icon Packager did not get resolved. I am not familiar with iconphile, but if it has been installed on your computer the whole time, it may be conflicting with Icon Packager. You could try uninstalling iconphile to test it.

On the minimized dock image, yes you can change it. You will need to go to the Configure Dock panel (AKA as dock settings) and deselect "Represent minimized windows by their screenshots" in the Appearance Tweaks section.

Then right-click the running task image you want to change and click the "Remove image for this class" button in - This Windows "Class" section - this will change the button to "Set image for this class". Click to set the image, and you will be able to navigate to and select an image.

There is also a "Set image for this program" button which will display the default icon for that image and also allow you to change the image. I do not use the running tasks on my docks, so that is all I have for you.

You will have to play around with it to see what setting the class image vs. setting the program image does in different circumstances.

I hope this helps.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Dude, i love you man. That helped a lot.

By any chance are you familiar with using the following products....reshacker, resedit and samurize?
I think i'm going to dive into that world very soon and i'll have many many questions to bother you with.

I have two question though, in laymans terms, what good is samurize? i have it here downloaded considering whether it'll be a cool thing to have.

In your opinion which mp3 player is better winamp or foobar or something else?
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
in laymans terms, what good is samurize?


I used Samurize for quite a while with great success. I liked it's flexibility and range of features.

It allows you to created all sorts of gadgets/widgets/whatever-you-want-to-call-them on your desktop.

The only reason I stopped using it was I discovered SysStats, which allows you to create the same sort of widgets that you can create with Samurize but place them within ObjectDock. It was just a case of rationalising the amount of programs with duplicate functions on my machine and trying for a more consistent look.

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
i gotta problem with OD as well...
sometimes it stops responding when i have it set to hide the windows taskbar and i turn OD off... then it doesn't show any bar at all. the only fix i know is to use the OD shortcut on my desktop and set it up so it doesn't hide the taskbar.
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
hotnikkelz,

Glad I could help, man.

I don't use any of those programs, though I would say Chris TH answered on the Samurize program. I have read and heard that Samurize connects well with the OS, and is easy to use once you understand the steps to create widgets, etc. - probably worth checking out if you are interested.

The other programs sound like they may be some level of hacking programs to me, though I may be completely off base.

I tend to stay away from hacks that cannot be done by the administrator directly in "regedit" or "gpedit" - but then again, my teachers are Network Admins for the most part and are very reserved - so I kind of picked up their habits.

I do know that there are a lot of things you can do by editing parts of the registry - therefore, some of these programs may offer a user interface to perform some changes to the registry, and change it back through the same interface, without corrupting the original registry keys.

If you want to try those programs and they are designed to create registry modifications, remember to back up the registry first before installing them. I would also try to install and uninstall the programs before using them, to insure they can be removed cleanly with no issues after removal. If you find an issue with uninstalling, I would recommend not using the program.

Create a restore point, and do not change any file locations until you are satisfied with the programs or decide that they are not quite what you want. System Restore tends to function well when you don't move things around a lot before utilizing it.

That is all I have for now.

Will check back later, Peace.
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Tominated,

What version of ObjectDock are you using?

How are you turning OD off?

For some basics, I would try the following:

Start ObjectDock and deselect the "Hide the windows taskbar" in the General section of Configure Dock dialog (AKA as Dock Settings), then save your theme using the "Save theme as ..." button in the same section.

Unload ObjectDock by either right-clicking the system tray icon and selecting "Unload ObjectDock", or by right-clicking the dock and selecting "Quit".

Open "My Computer" and go to "Tools>Folder Options>View tab" and select "Show hidden files and folders", then click "Apply".

Now go to "C:\Documents and Settings\"user account"\Local Settings\Application Data\Stardock" folder (where "C" is the letter drive, and "user account" is the name on the account when you are logged in), and delete any ObjectDock folder found there. This will delete the current cache, which will remove any conflicts this may be holding on to.

Right-click an empty space on the Taskbar and select "Properties". In the properties dialog, select "Lock Taskbar", and "Keep the taskbar on top of other windows" - then deselect "Auto-hide the taskbar" and click "Apply".

Start ObjectDock (don't be surprised when you see the default dock(s) show up), right-click a dock and select "Dock Settings...", then use the "Load theme" button in the General section to load your saved theme.

If all is well, select "Hide the windows taskbar" and then save your theme again. This will write the current theme to cache.

These are some suggestions to start, since I do not know which version you are running or any other details.

I hope this helps.
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
hotnikkelz,

Forgot to mention.

I tend to like Winamp for MP3 format just because they have been at it a long time, and they currently have the largest skin selection.

Another common one is iTunes which I believe is a free download from Adobe and includes a player, a library function, and I believe the ability to at least copy files to handhelds. I don't use this one just because I already have Windows Media Player 10, and Winamp 5.08 which is enough for me.
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
NICE! I think i'll try out samurize in the future after all, thanks for the help. I've been told that people use reshack and resedit to create visual styles for windows xp. What people do is replace the uxtheme.dll file in the system32 windows folder witha hacked version of the dll, this allows them to use third party visual styles that are not microsoft digitally signed. It's some cool shit, reshack and resedit are the more non-friendly programs to make the visual styles, the user friendly one is stylebuilder which i'm disliking a lot right about now
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Back-up your registry, man.

I also bought a third hard drive which I keep a Ghosted clone of my local disc on, so that in a bad situation I can swap out and be up and running in 10 minutes - then reghost the good image onto the drive that had the bad issue.

Works like a charm - of course you need to save about $80.00 to do this, plus get some sort of imaging software. Well worth it though.

Cheers.
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
No need for that safety measure, i'm least bit worried about crashes and the sorts, feel free to give me crazy things to experiment hehe There's nothing of extreme value here, i reformat often anyway I can get Norton ghost at will though it's around here somewhere, just gotta find it.

Unrelated questions:
When i ctrlaltdel, under process you know there's teh things the systrem runs, and do the stuff that the user runs. I see somethings i'm unfamilar with, I wanted to know, if tehre's a way to trace the purpose of these processes, and where they're coming from, and how to stop them from running.
The few i'm unfamilar with are
PDVDServ.exe
ccApp.exe
sdmcp.exe


they're bugging me out, cuz i dunno what the hell they are, and i don't think they're spyware either.
Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
hotnikkelz,

"sdmcp.exe" is the Stardock Smartstart process (you can disable it by starting Stardock Central and going to "Tools>Settings" and deselecting "Enable MCP Smart Startup. If you start to see some strange behavior in the Stardock products, you will probably want to enable it again - I leave it on and see no issues that would make me want to turn it off. (Note - turning it off does disable the Object Desktop splash screen that tends to flash for a second at startup).

"ccApp.exe" is a file residing in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec" on my machine.


Not sure on the "PDVDServ.exe", the "DVD" reference is interesting - perhaps media software related?

I would run a search for any files you want to know about, and you should be able to find the root folder for the process by right clicking the file and selecting "Open Containing Folder", this should give you an idea as to whether you want to end the process or not - (make sure to set search to look in hidden files and folders via the advanced search options).

On the experimentation, if you can get another drive to clone to, go for it. There is nothing wrong with hacking your own system to check things out. Just be prepared to swap out, or go without if things go awry.

Will check back later, Peace.
Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Aye thanks as usual.

Is there a way to change the icons in the start menu without changing from classic view? I personally adore the classic view and i don't want to change it but i want to change the icons like run, search etc etc. Is there anyway to do this.

Also my taskbar is a dark blue, and i'd like to change the colour of it without using an additional program. What do i do?
Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top
hotnikkelz,

Sorry, I think you are out of luck on the Classic Start menu changes to icons like Run, Search, etc. If I am not mistaken, these icons are static and do not reference a ".dll" or any other location which would allow you to change them.

I don't know of any registry changes that can be made through regedit or gpedit that will allow changing the Taskbar color. I suppose one could design a skin that works with the "Themes" service, but I would opt for using WindowBlinds and SkinStudio. You could create images for the taskbar, taskbar buttons, start button, systray parts and leave the rest of the default items in place, and use SkinStudio to assemble them and create a skinned taskbar.

I have not used TweakUI, so I am not familiar with the full abilities of that program, though there may be some abilities to do what you want that way.

Here is a link to "winguides" which has a lot of information pertaining to the registry and may interest you Link


That's all I've got for now.
Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Oh damn hehe, well that sucks that i can't change them. Well actually the default icons aren't really bad coming to think of it. I did make some icons for myself though for the first time I'm using photopshop 7. Hard as hell, anyway my icons are beautiful at resolution 48x48 and 128x128 but for some reason they're choppy at 16x16 i don't know why. I don't know how people get it smoothe at that resolution, if anyone knows about graphic editing and stuff holla. Making icons is fun

I haven't explored tweakUI either, i might try it out soon, but first I'm trying to find out how to change my taskbar without additional programs. I'm trying to figure out how to change the windows as well, like how stefanka did with his theme. How does he do it?