emerge desktop v1.0

tired of boring old windows? why not try emerge desktop. emerge desktop is an opensource alternative windows 2000/xp shell. here's the about section of emerge's help documentation:

Emerge Desktop is a replacement windows "shell" (the destop environment normally provided by Windows Explorer). In order to replace Windows Explorer as a shell, it provides a system tray (the area that collects the icons collected at the lower right corner in Explorer), called emergeTray. It will also provide access to the users programs (normally accessed with the windows "start" button) via a right-click on the desktop, via emergeCore.

Emerge Desktop is implemented with MinGW which is an OpenSource implementation of the GNU C compiler and utilitied. Up to this point, closed source commercial projects have mainly been used (Microsoft Visual C++, Borland Delphi) to develop alternate shells as they use proprietary Microsoft API features. With Microsoft releasing more detailed information about these API calls, the MinGW win32api is now quite complete. Additionally, several web sites on the internet have started to include documentation and code that illustrate how to access and use these functions.

Emerge Desktop has an open API, which allows for applets to be coded with compilers other than MinGW if someone wishes to do so. In fact Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 project and workspace files are available in CVS in case someone wants to use them.

From a design point of view, Emerge Desktop applets are capable of being run as both standalone as well as being integrated. In order for Emerge Desktop applets to communicate with each other, emergeCore must be running. With out emergeCore, each applet will run indepandantly (if, for example, you wish to use them in conjunction with another desktop shell).

With the facilities provided by SourceForge, there are forums, a mailing list and all the source is released under the GPL and is available in CVS. Please feel free to try Emerge Desktop, and provide feedback!


here are some things i like about emerge desktop:

i love the fact that you can place the applets anywhere on the screen. i'm a bit of a control freak at times and i want my desktop to behave the way i tell it to. emerge desktop provides enough configurability for me to be able to take control of my desktop effectively. =)

the virtual window manager is also a great bonus. it brings the multiple desktop functionality of xwindows to windows. it's one of my favorite applets because i have a tendency to have too many windows open =D

and my favorite applet? its... hehe... the weather applet! =D i mean, who doesn't want 24/7 access to weather =p

it's not yet perfect, there are still some bugs here and there but i think v1.0 is a pretty good release. if you're feeling a little adventurous, download emerge now and give it a spin =) it's just around 800K, a surprisingly small download for desktop replacement.

ps - just in case you're interested, here's a screenshot of my desktop: