sorry, i just finished getting hammered and stoned and all that stuff (partying). i promise to deliver the next portion of it, just give me time please.

Windows Vista Desktop - Landscape

Take the time you need! Really looking forward to the next part party on

I have now tried this but I am not very satisfied..it's a lot of things I feel I miss.. A good calendar on the first page..better taskswitching.. I am sure lots of this will have a solution in the next part of your guide but I have to ask you if you are actually using this and not anything else? TCPMP wont work..dont know why really..

if you want a calendar on the first page, there will be conflict right away according to the way i wrote this work in progress tutorial.

if you use a today plugin on a page and for whatever reason you have a dock that is, for example, on top of the plugin, the dock will be cut off. so you see, you place a plugin on the main page, and if for whatever reason you have the sidebar enabled, the sidebar dock and its subitems, will be cut off. there is a way you can get around this, but then you will have to create seperate pages for each thing. you can embedd the sidebar dock image on your wallpaper and add the contents there, then switch to a page with the exact same display minus the sidebar. there is a limit to this as well: you have to use a specific wallpaper with the sidebar image embedded onto it.

as for task switching, you can add an icon to the system tray that toggles WA2's task switching ability...

and as for if i actually use this, yes. i use landscape and portrait versions of my skin that look identical. i map a hardware button to switch modes. i didnt make this tutorial so everyone could rip it off, i am just showing how you could acheive this look with instructions, using my theme as a base for the tutorial.

Windows Vista Desktop - Landscape

i am sick today so i am staying in. i am currently prepping the rest..

Windows Vista Desktop - Landscape

Actually, you can have the cascading start menu without showing the "second" taskbar. Just add more and more docks and controls. i.e. Tap start button, start menu comes up. Tap programs, level 1 pops up with lots of program groups. Each entry there toggles yet another submenu "dock." Extremely time-consuming, but the most Vista-like setup possible.

And no, even I'm not enough of a geek to spend the hours building this type of menu structure in WAD!

 

aximgenius: he is refering to the cascading start menu in WA2, not creating your own start menu.

Windows Vista Desktop - Landscape

When doing the My Documents/Pictures/etc links, we use text controls. Here is an example of adding My Documents:

• Tap and hold on the Start menu dock
• Go to New > Text
• For Object Type select Custom Text
• For Text to Display, fill in something. I used Documents.
• For Tap Action, fill in \My Documents or whatever folder represents your documents directory.

• Press OK when you are finished. Font is option once again.
• Repeat this process for each item, filling in the Object Type, Text to Display, and Tap Action respectivley.

Once we have filled in our Start menu, we can move onto something else. Let's go ahead and start our Sidebar dock. We are going to make this dock toggle on or off as well, so if we don't want it, we can hide it easily. This will in the end, be controlled by a button.

• Tap and hold somewhere on the desktop.
• Select New > Dock.
• Select the box representing the Background image
• Browse to the directory where we installed the Windows Vista WAD files and open the Sidebar folder

• Make sure this dock will be docked to the right edge of the screen
• We will give this dock the name "side".
• Uncheck "Hide this dock after executing a subitem"
• Checking or unchecking "Visable by default" is optional.

• Press OK. We now have our Sidebar dock ready to be filled up.

• Currently, the sidebar is overlapping our taskbar. We need this to sit behind the taskbar. Tap and hold on the Sidebar dock and select Send to Back. Now the sidebar is behind the taskbar.

What do you want to add to your Sidebar? You can pretty much add anything you want to this. For example, the Day of the week, an analog clock, some meters, maybe some shortcuts to some programs, some information about upcoming appointments/tasks, e-mail...the list goes on. I guess we can start with the day of the week, which is very simple.

There are many different customer text "identifiers" in WAD that you can use. Here is a list of identifiers that you can use. This list is quoted from duckies' post on the Lakeridge Software forums with additions from myself:

%T12% - Displays 12 hour time
%T24% - Displays 24 hour time
%DOW% - Displays the Day of the week
%MN% - Displays the Numeric month
%ML% - Displays the Long month
%MS% - Displays the Short month
%Year% - Displays current year
%Batt% - Displays the current battery percentage
%FM% - Displays Free RAM
%MTT% - Displays Total RAM
%Appt% - Displays Appointment Count
%Tsk% - Displays Task Count
%Day% - Displays the current day of the month
%Page% - Displays the name of the active page
%Week% - Displays the current week of the year (using ISO calculations)
%Freepath_% - Displays the current free space on the specified card
%Totalpath)% - Displays the total space on the specified card
%Percpath)% - Displays the percentage of free space on the specified card
%Usedpath)% - Displays the amount of storage used on the specified card.
%GMT12offset)% - Displays the time offset from GMT in 12-hour format.
%GMT24offset)% - Displays the time offset from GMT in 24-hour format.
%Unreadaccount)% - Displays the ammount of unread emails in specified email account.
%MissedCalls% - Displays how many missed calls you have.

On SOME OF the above variables, (path) should be replaced with the path to your storage card (i.e. \ or \SD Card).

Windows Vista Desktop - Landscape

damn....I just got it the way I wanted and I hit something and bam....gone..I can't find the damn thing....Is there a way to create a new Theme and ensure it's saved on sd or cf card? Thanks..

KNUMB

Mine's done that a few times. I have to soft-reset to get it to again.

Does anyone's hang when switching screen orientation? I think maybe I have too many menu's now. I'm guessing it's a memory problem. But I suppose it could be because all of my files are on my CF card?

I don't have any of the problems you guys are experiencing...

Windows Vista Desktop - Landscape

Hi
How do I get the vista wallpaper that is on the beginning of the tutorial

Cheers

Thanks AFX! I would consider myself a power-user, but it's still great to see how other people work sometimes. WA2 and WAD have to be the greatest two ppc progs ever invented. The theme looks supurb.

Did I answer your question or make a meaningful contribution to the discussion? Press my "thanks button" (in the lower right hand corner) to say thanks!

Kevin's Blog: http://lettucebrain.blogspot.com/

 

which is the identifier to display upcoming appts? Not appt numbers, but similiar to the today one where it shows what is the next appt. It's on your main desktop above gmail acct. Thanks!

you cant do this as of yet with WAD, although i have requested it myself personally.

Windows Vista Desktop - Landscape