shellcity.net — A great list of replacement shells for Windows. "Shell replacements take the place of the Windows Explorer. That is, they provide a substitute for the System tray, the Taskbar, the Desktop, My Computer, and/or the Start Menu. Usually the substitute is more configurable, flexible, and more attractive than the Explorer."
Mar 27, 2006 View in Crawl 4
rauzMar 27, 2006
All text and no screenshots makes Rauz a dull boy.
justmattMar 27, 2006
Amen. I love Linux just as much as anyone, but you don't have to throw in your Linux comments just to sound "geeky." We get it.
Closed AccountMar 27, 2006
it does have the option for shell replacement... i think it uses aston.
drizekMar 28, 2006
When i started using linux, i got litestep to try and get better gaming performance with windows. It wasnt unstable, but it was quite buggy. Lots of weird behavior and just generally not very impressive. Didnt care much though cause all i just wanted a couple icons for my games.I pretty much gave up on theming windows though, it just wasnt meant to be. I got sick of the registry key hacking and all that. KDE and GNOME are built around customization, and they are far more mature than the shells availabe for XP, including the default one.
mesachMar 28, 2006
Dont worry 9Digits, you will get your chance next week when it comes back, and we have the usual rounds of "I've never seen it"
sosukeMar 28, 2006
glassjoe, i switched because there was a very short time when the future of litestep was in question, development stopped and it was up in the air, i switched over to bb4win for a while until my boss told me to take it all off my machine :)
jupoMar 28, 2006
I've used LiteStep on and off over the years as well as trying several other shells and it's by far the most mature and stable. Once you learn how to script modules together and create your own themes then there's no limit to what you can do. People call it buggy but I'd say they're referring to buggy themes they've downloaded that have been created by other users.
mushooMar 29, 2006
Upon new light shed by the Oh, dark one whose name I cannot even begin to pronounce (cthulhu), f**k Geo Shell.Nice work by the way.Once you get used to right-clicking it seems more natural. Thx for the linkz.
fabiopsousaApr 25, 2006
Litestep, long time for sure!
satyrJun 4, 2006
I am too a devoted fan of the "Blackbox for Windows" alternative-shell program (OS's shell-replacement) for almost four years now, but lately I've become a total fan of bbLean branch: <a class="user" href="http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean">http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean</a> (it's a variant of Blackbox program), although I said that I will use the main bb4win branch: <a class="user" href="http://www.bb4win.org">http://www.bb4win.org</a> forever. Btw. for another list of shells, see this page here: <a class="user" href="http://shells.loose-screws.com">http://shells.loose-screws.com</a> ...It was mainly because I prefer to use programs that are still "alive" (still developed), and now I can say without any doubt that it rocks. Here below are the links two related threads that I opened back then on the "Lost In The Box" forum; if you want to please check them out. One thread is titled "Finally - my thread about things I like in bbLean": <a class="user" href="http://www.lostinthebox.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1665">http://www.lostinthebox.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1665</a> and it contains various bbLean-related discoveries, and the other one is titled "Two totally basic questions on bbLean": <a class="user" href="http://www.lostinthebox.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1428">http://www.lostinthebox.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1428</a> with further bbLean-related discoveries and confusions.The things I especially like in bbLean (compare to bb4win):- The absolute favorite of mine is a feature to display only tasks from the current workspace.- Then there is one which is pretty straight-forward: I totally love the option to change workspace just with a single-click (right or left) on a workspace-name.- Similarly, a pretty straight-forward one: I like an option to send a program to another workspace with just double-clicking on the program's task item.- Finally, I totally like that menus and sub-menus (i.e. the "pinned" ones) stay open when you "put them aside", even if you hoover a mouse pointer over its parent menu or sub-menu after "putting them aside".And even though I am a minimalist (or better yet, I am a obsessed with minimalism) and so I usually run my shell only with the required/default plugins, i.e. I prefer to run only the pure program's "core" (in Blackbox's case that means only the bbLeanBar plugin; and it's quite similar in Firefox and extensions case), it occured that I've started to use also the bbLeanSkin skinning plugin lately. It's that I totally love its "rollup/rolldown window" feature. I was pretty amazed when I discovered that bbLeanSkin plugin offers this feature and so it now replaces Winroll program for me (for this one, see one of the previous "blog-entries")P.S. -- FYI, did you know that on 9x systems almost any program with an "Open" dialog could be run as a shell, IIRC set with the "shell=" line in a "system.ini" file. And yeah "nucleocide", unfortunately that GO! shell you've mentioned runs only on Windows 98. It's a commandline an an "Open" button; totally minimalistic.cheers all, satyr
nekoJan 23, 2008
I tried it - it was pretty cool for a while, but then I found the dock was interfering with video and taking screenshots within games - you'd get a green or black rectangle.Haven't been able to completely get rid of it, either - but I don't want to reinstall just to get rid of a few out-of-theme icons. I can't bear to look at those green hills again.
nekoJan 23, 2008
Why do people throw "ms windows" comments around the linux articles, claiming a superior OS just because of Photoshop and the like?Because the internet is full of humans. Given enough humans, someone on a forum will make a comment you don't like.
nekoJan 23, 2008
Aww - I dug you up before I found your link was dead. Anyone have a working link? Tango icons are great, I'd love to replace the winxp icons with them.
jjusticeJan 23, 2008
I never understood the metaphor "shell." I had it explained to me that it means "as in layer - it wraps around system functionality to give it to you in a nicer way." Not very specific if you ask me. Then again, I'm a GUI child =]
shindoggAug 2, 2009
this is all bull. no, see, i like havin a taskbar w/ start menu, quick launch & notification area (u kno, the clock and other icons on the right side of your opened "tasks") but i HATE the way that explorer will sometimes freeze or crash and then i'll lose a bunch of icons in my notification area and for some reason when explorer is open IE loads pages slower. shut down explorer from task manager, faster IE. and im usin IE 8 not 6 or 7. firefox sucks because it takes up too many processor cycles when restorin a session. and when i get bothered to upgrade it i lose my history, last session and bookmarks. of course you know that pisses me off. so yes, i need an explorer replacement, not some stupid program that imitates the obsolete program manager (remember win 3.1? ugh!) or a dumb shell that crashes or doesnt look anything like xp or worse, both. i dont want to change the xp theme to osx or linux or some crap, i like the xp "classic style. doesnt anybody have a stable shell thats free that looks like windows 2000 but will let you change its colors? ( i dont like the standard colors)