windows Shell replacement

[SirPoonga]

Ok, you want to get rid of the windows look, here's how!!
http://www.astonshell.com
Says it works with any windows.  It works fine in XP.

You have to register it, it has a 30 day trial.  Look at some of the themes, it's nutz!  And arcade theme would rule.  

My fave themes I have tried out so far.
The warcraft III themes
Aqua (Mac look alike)
Sniper

The best way to describe it is if you ever used the afterstep windows manager in linux this is alot like it, but more powerful.

Edit: doh, this belongs in software section....

[Minwah]

That looks cool!  I'm gonna try it out later...  

[Tiger-Heli]

Edit: doh, this belongs in software section....

Glad you put it here, I never check the software section.

How long have you been running it?  What does it do?  I checked the site and I can see how it lets you customize the desktop wallpaper and buttons with the themes, but . . .

It also says that it uses less resuorces and is more stable than Windoze.  Does this seem to be true?

Any other helpful info about it you can share?

[SirPoonga]

I just tried it last night, it's pretty cool.  You have to use it in order to completely understand it.  Try afew themes.  You'll see that they implement buttons with the desktop, kinda cool.  I am thinking of using that idea as an interface to start my frontend or pc games.  It won't look like windows.

The side toolbars are pretty cool too.  I really like the interface.  Though you have to be someone who organizes your computer, I ahve tons of stuff on my desktop, can;t do that with this.



Edit:  Oh yeah, unlike other shells this seems to actually be stable.  I loved litestep (which is based on my favorite xwindows manager afterstep) but it would crash easily.  Shells tend to not be stable, just a warning.

[Dave_K.]

Ya, looks like just another LiteStep windows shell replacement.  So what makes this one so special (besides having to pay for it)??  

[SirPoonga]

It is extremely customizable and much more stable.  Just run it, it has a trial.

[nipsmg]

I'd go with litestep.

#1: It's free
#2: I'ts EXTREMELY customizable
#3: There's already a large userbase and developer community
#4: There's TONS of free add-ons and modules available
#5: It's stable, I've used it for years and rarely had a problem

There is a small learning curve, but if you take the time, it's very easy to use.. also, there are tons of themes already available, and they usually not only come with a themed litestep shell and wallpaper, but also with mods and even windowblinds skins, and many are ready to go right out of the box.  YOu can have extremely complex, or EXTREMELY simple interfaces, and it's easy to create your own graphics and addons for shortcuts.. EVERYTHING is customizable.

It's really a great shell.  


--NipsMG

[SirPoonga]

litestep stable?? hahahhaha
man, I can bring litestep to it's knees, it's nice, just not stable.

Oh yeah, and another thing about aston, they try and make it customizable with a GUI, not config files.  Makes it easier to customize.  There's nothing wrong with litestep, just aston went the extra mile.  Like a shell switcher, it does all the registry changes for you to use what shell you want.


Actually, I was looking at litestep again, aston is more customizable.  Litestep,  if they made it more stable would be another good shell replacement.  Though Litestep is open source, so making changes if you can understand it would be easy.

[Tiger-Heli]

Quick comments/questions on Aston:

First off, I am running Win98 SE and Webshots for wallpaper.  I am not trying to get away from the windows look and feel (of the default themes I like the XP one, if that tells you anything!!!) plus my kids use my computer also, so I don’t want to explain to them that everything runs from a hidden side tool bar now.  But if I can get more stability and maybe eek out a little more performance, that would be a good thing. . .

One thing I did first off was open Control Panel - Desktop themes and save my current color and cursor settings as a theme (Save current settings as . . .)  Then, in Aston, I was able to go into desktop themes and get my default color settings back.

The program works pretty well.  For stability, I tried something that currently locks my PC up (starting MAME and closing the dos box during ROM loading) and it worked in Aston, but I only did it one time, so that isn’t anything conclusive.

I didn’t have any problems switching in and out of it, except . . .  My wallpaper vanished on returning to windows (but Webshots was able to restore it) and many of my default icons (MP3 files, GIF files, Folder Icons, Start Icon, Help Icons, etc.) were changed and not restored.  I think TweakUI was not able to restore them either.  I don’t know how to change them back, unless maybe if I uninstall the program, but it’s not a major deal anyway.

*******

Now the comments/Questions:

Is there any documentation on customizing Aston.

Specifically,  my Quick Lanch bar had about 12 items on it.  In Aston, I have three on the taskbar and then they go up a cascading menu.  I can make the taskbar 4 units tall, putting them all in a 4x3 matrix, but is there a way to widen the Q/L area to have them all fit on the standard 1 unit taskbar.

The default wallpaper has links to programs that aren’t installed on my PC.  How do I take them off and add the icons that used to be there (which are now in the Desktop folder).

Aston has a lot of Start menu items (Recent documents, log off, etc.) which I had disabled with TweakUI.  Any way to kill them in Aston?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[rampy]

tiger-heli ... may I make an unpopular suggestion?  If you're trying to eak out the bet performance in a win98 platform....  I'd suggest win98 lite

Basically it allows you to customize a windoze install... it has settings like chubby , sleek, and micro...  One of the neat things about it is you can go ultra hardcore and replace the more bloated win98 shell/explorer with the slimmer/faster windows 95 one...  (no active desktop crap)... remove IE and other assorted non essential bloated crap...

So.. I get the speed of 95, the more stable (relatively speaking, of course...) 98 "core", and 98's USB/driver support.  Works for me YMMV...

It doesn't have the customization of the other desktop replacements, but you can still use themes and tweakui to customize it like any other regular windoze install...

So... for performance reasons only that's what I run when my cabinet is not in DOS.

let me know if you'd like to know more about it...

rampy

[Tiger-Heli]

let me know if you'd like to know more about it...

Check you Personal Messages.

[bhille]

tiger-heli ... may I make an unpopular suggestion?  If you're trying to eak out the bet performance in a win98 platform....  I'd suggest win98 lite

let me know if you'd like to know more about it...

From what you describe, Windows 98 lite sounds like it would be perfect.  Why is it so unpopular?  Where can I get a copy?

Thanks.  Brian

[rampy]

Not everyone thinks its "more stable" than vanilla 98... and people fear compatibility issues.  My experience has been the opposite

http://www.litepc.com/index.html

If you can live with old 95 shell (no bells and whistles...no quickstart tray)... it's pretty lean and mean IMHO

Note: i'm not affiliated with them at all... I just think it's a great tool for configuring 98 on older machines or getting maximum tweakage...  

*Shrug*  as usually YMMV

rampy

PS tigerheli I replied I think... check your pm's... either that or I accidently replied to the person who pm'ed above you =(

[nipsmg]

The one thing I don't like about aston is they charge for their Virtual Desktop Addin.. that kinda sucks :-/

But at $35 it's not bad, and if it's as stable as poonga says, than that's cool.

however, I ran Litestep 0.24.5(?) for the longest time without every having a stability problem, and this was running a theme pretty heavily littered with Dock modules and addon DLL's... :-/  I guess YMMV..

I'd give litestep a shot tho.. it's free, you can make your interface as lean or as fat as you want, and there's a lot of user support available out there.. Just DOn'T GET A DEVELOPMENT BUILD.. get a stable build ..

(there are even installers that have a theme preinstalled)..

--NipsMG  

[Howard_Casto]

The low-down on 98-lite (from my business experience)  

98 lite is ok if you already know ahead of time the programs you will be running on it, aren't worried so much about direct-X support, and don't have any usb devices.  

It's not a stability issue at all, it's a compatability one.  That extra performance boost comes from removing a lot of the core functions from 98, which is bad, umk. It'll run some programs fine, but then you put a new program on there and it won't run.  The only way to get it to run is to format and install regular 98se.  Also I have had terrible luck with 98 lite and any usb devices, or 98 lite and any apps that require directX. This is because 98 lite substitutes many of windoze core elements with windows 95 elements.  In other words you are going back 7 years in terms of compatability. 95 hated usb as it was brand new, and the gaming platform that is directx wasn't perfected until 98.  

Some people have luck with it and good for them, but unless you are willing to re-format your os if you need to add new software then I couldn't reccomend it to anyone.  

Besides, 98 has minimal overhead in relation to todays computers, it's not going to make any difference unless you have a really crappy pc to begin with that can barely handle 98.

All and about these shells you guys are talkign about... Isn't that what the front end is for.  Once any good fe is launched you shouldn't see any windows until you exit.  Have it setup in dedicated mode and you shouldn't see any period.  

[Xiaou2]

 I tried a few shell rep. programs a log while back ago.  I didnt like - and didnt understand -  how to make them work (program them to work with everything)   I really dont think one would want to either... as these programs are supposed to make things easier! : )  

  Anyway... wouldnt it be nice if the Desktop was true to its nature?   Basically, there should be several desktops - one for play, one for mp3s, one for games, one for productivity..ect.    

  Remember, that the desktop is merely a folder on the harddrive  - and so it would be nice, if you could view any folder on the desktop - the same way.

  You then could customize what buttons and shortcuts were individually for that displayed desktop(folder).  IE: Winamp always opens up when in the Music desktop.

  At the top of the desktops, there is a File cabinet drawer.  Click it, to reveal the explorer on the left side of the screen.  
The difference, would be that it would look like a filecabinet, so people less adept would easier understand how to access & Place files.

  Can anyone make this for me? : )  Does it exist like this?
Take the idea.. and make millions...then send me some $

 

 http://www.xiaou2.homestead.com

 

[SirPoonga]

Now the comments/Questions:

Is there any documentation on customizing Aston.

Specifically,  my Quick Lanch bar had about 12 items on it.  In Aston, I have three on the taskbar and then they go up a cascading menu.  I can make the taskbar 4 units tall, putting them all in a 4x3 matrix, but is there a way to widen the Q/L area to have them all fit on the standard 1 unit taskbar.

The default wallpaper has links to programs that aren’t installed on my PC.  How do I take them off and add the icons that used to be there (which are now in the Desktop folder).

Aston has a lot of Start menu items (Recent documents, log off, etc.) which I had disabled with TweakUI.  Any way to kill them in Aston?

Thanks in advance for the help!

It's all done in the aston manager.  There is docs on it in the FAQS on their page, the readme and .hlp file that come with it.

BTW, yeah, it does suck you have to pay for it, but that, to me, would mean there is a single source for technical support, not a community.

Like I said, I haven't tried litestep in awhile, the last time I used it I could easily crash it.  Maybe it changed, will have to try it out sometime.  I didn't see a cool theme for litestep though that I wanted to try:(

I have yet to make aston crash, I've made widnows crash, but not aston yet.  I've been trying, I brought my computer to a dead halt with doing too much, came back in an hour when everyhin caught up and aston was still running.  Hehe, want to know how I did that.  I ran Unreal Tournament in windowed mode while compiling mame.  I have a PIII 500 with 256megs of memeory.  It doesn't take much.

[rampy]

The low-down on 98-lite (from my business experience)  

98 lite is ok if you already know ahead of time the programs you will be running on it, aren't worried so much about direct-X support, and don't have any usb devices.  

It's not a stability issue at all, it's a compatability one.  That extra performance boost comes from removing a lot of the core functions from 98, which is bad, umk. It'll run some programs fine, but then you put a new program on there and it won't run.  The only way to get it to run is to format and install regular 98se.  Also I have had terrible luck with 98 lite and any usb devices, or 98 lite and any apps that require directX. This is because 98 lite substitutes many of windoze core elements with windows 95 elements.  In other words you are going back 7 years in terms of compatability. 95 hated usb as it was brand new, and the gaming platform that is directx wasn't perfected until 98.  

Some people have luck with it and good for them, but unless you are willing to re-format your os if you need to add new software then I couldn't reccomend it to anyone.  

Besides, 98 has minimal overhead in relation to todays computers, it's not going to make any difference unless you have a really crappy pc to begin with that can barely handle 98.

Howard, I'm not saying it has perfect compatibilty... but there is different levels of tweaking that could be done with 98lite... If you go micro/sleak you are replacing only the explorer shell/ notepad and a few other applications with the windows 95 code/libraries/whatever...  You keep the 98SE USB compat, and all the rest... The thing with 98lite is YOU choose what crap belongs on your PC.  And if you find a compatibility problem, you can reenable/install that component with 98lite config menu thingie...

I'm not saying it's gods gift... it works great for me, ymmv.  But I'm pretty sure you've got a minor case of the FUD going there howard (which surpsises me as you are usually very factual).  Maybe it was more like you said when you tried it, maybe the current version is better (that would explain some of the varying results/experience)  I run the latest direct x for 98 on my 98 lite machine... so I get all the latest drivers/compat.  

Here's the rub though, if some assclown coder creates a program that DEPENDS on using IE for part of its functionality (for example... it could be some other item/library/functionaltiy I chose to remove) I'm screwed... then I have a choice install IE/MS html engine or not (and not use that program)

It doesn't matter to me if anyone else uses it.. but if you have an older PC like some people are running, you can get eak out better performance (especially if you understand other tweaks for maxing performance).  Yes, you probably should do a clean install... but if you've been running 98etc or ME for any length of time you are probably due anyways...

*shrug*  

rampy

[Tiger-Heli]

Ok, I tried Aston for another day now and answered most of my own questions,  Thought I would post them and some other little known factoids about it here.

First, there is a registration fee, but you get a free serial if you make a theme or plug-in for it.  There is a fairly detailed skin tutorial in the skins section of the Astonshell forum.  I don't think I'll go this route, but it doesn't look that complicated.

Also, I have had the computer crash once running Ashton, but not as often as before I installed it.  (I think my motherboard has about had it, and the time to upgrade is drawing nigh!)

I didn't have any problems switching in and out of it, except . . .  My wallpaper vanished on returning to windows (but Webshots was able to restore it)

There is an option on the Aston Master (A-Master) Main tab for "Restore Wallpaper on Exit" which was previously unchecked, but I don't know if this fixes this problem.

and many of my default icons (MP3 files, GIF files, Folder Icons, Start Icon, Help Icons, etc.) were changed and not restored.

Haven't found a fix for this, but it's okay, Aston has nice icons.

but is there a way to widen the Q/L area to have them all fit on the standard 1 unit taskbar.

Either right click on the blue dot where the menu cascades up or go to A-Master, Plug-Ins, Quick-Launch, and click "Set-up Plug In"  Either one brings up a menu where you can set the width (in Icons).

The default wallpaper has links to programs that aren't installed on my PC.  How do I take them off and add the icons that used to be there (which are now in the Desktop folder).

Remove Icons by right-clicking them and selecting Remove or Disable.  Add previous ones by opening A-Master and selecting Desktop - Get Explorer Icons.

Aston has a lot of Start menu items (Recent documents, log off, etc.) which I had disabled with TweakUI.  Any way to kill them in Aston?

Open A-master, Taskbar, right-click the item in the list and click Disable.  (Pretty nice that it has a disable feature along with delete or add).

Also, I have some current questions/suggestions for Aston posted here: http://www.astonshell.com/forum/YaBB.pl?board=aston;action=display;num=1034954820;start=0

[SirPoonga]

I didn't have any problems switching in and out of it, except . . .  My wallpaper vanished on returning to windows (but Webshots was able to restore it)

There is an option on the Aston Master (A-Master) Main tab for "Restore Wallpaper on Exit" which was previously unchecked, but I don't know if this fixes this problem.

Use the theme manager to put them back, there is an icon section.  Also the plus theme manager will do it too.