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RE[7]: Screenshots?
by rcsteiner on Mon 5th Mar 2007 17:22 UTC in reply to "RE[6]: Screenshots?"
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I am curious. What would those be? I can't think of any. The only feature I can think of is Shadow.

The fact that the WPS has discrete Shadow and Program Object icons is nice (the former simply points to the parent like a symbolic link does and uses the original program's settings, while the latter has its own set of object settings and acts as a customized clone of the original program).

Some other things that the WPS has which is missing in either Windows, Linux, or both:

* Object templates, allowing users to create a stack of tear-off icons from any other icon on the desktop. An easy way to create duplicates of a given icon complete with its environment.

* Decent visual queues for processes that are running, during desktop copy/move/create-shortcut operations, etc. I especially like the WPS rubber-banding effect between the source icon and mouse pointer when creating a shadow, and the cross-hatching the WPS uses to show any desktop icons associated with a running process.

* Workgroup folders (allows for the creation of logical execution groups by putting programs and documents in a folder marked as a workgroup) -- this is quite nice for starting/opening several programs/documents at the same time with a single click, and for closing them all as a unit with a single action. I use this frequently.

* The ability to lock individual icons in place on the desktop so they can't be moved.

* A decent built-in desktop backup facility which lets you save and restore past desktops in case you mess up.

* Different wallpapers in each folder. Maybe ROX Filer will add this feature. :-)

* Context menus for the desktop and folders which can be modified by drag-and drop (adding programs, etc.).

* Drag-and-drop font and color configuration in various applications (want a new font? Drag-and-drop it on the application from the system font template).

* An entry in the context menu of shortcuts that points directly back at the parent and which lets you open up the folder in which the parent resides. I use this all the time in the WPS. It's a reverse shortcut lookup.

* Animated window frames when opening/closing windows and dialogs. The WPS requires a third-party utility to do this, but I love the effects.

* Animated mouse pointers. Windows supports this, and Linux has some basic animation effects, but few Linux desktops provide customizable animated mouse pointers that allow me to change the text entry cursor, window resizing cursors, wait pointer, etc.

* A built-in icon editor. Windows seems to lack this.

That's a start off the top of my head...

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