Thoughts on new version

Joined: 18 Feb 2008 Posts: 4

In a word: nice. Very Happy

The text for the icons (implemented like the seperators) is clever. Here's how I have mine:

Very useful. The only quibble I have is the text is restricted to the icon's space, which means both that it's relatively small and that it overlaps the icon's image, both of which make the text hard to read. In the image above (on the Powerpoint icon), you can see difference in size/readability compared with the usual description. Still it's a nice feature.

One minor bug report: when you erase the text entirely, it persists until you reselect the icon's image.

Anyway, sent a donation your way. With this and Launchy, I haven't used the Start Menu in ages.

My wishlist still includes having stablauncher only activate when the mouse is over its space. Maybe next version ;)

Site Admin Joined: 09 Jan 2007 Posts: 87

Hi!

The idea was to help differentiate apps, for example different projects that have the same icon. This way just write something on top and you can find it quickly. And actually I use some blank icons that i made, this way the text is not overlapping anything important.

About that bug, I only noticed it after uploading it. Confused

It will be fixed on next version.

And only opening if mouse is under the tabs is still on the to do list. Sorry. It will surely be on next version.

Thank you very much for your donation! Really appreciated!

Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Posts: 2

Thank you for the opportinuity to try your software. Smile

I must agree with the comments below

Quote:

the text is restricted to the icon's space, which means both that it's relatively small and that it overlaps the icon's image, both of which make the text hard to read. In the image above (on the Powerpoint icon), you can see difference in size/readability compared with the usual description.

I my opinion it make this feature as it is unusable
You intention is very valid

Quote:

The idea was to help differentiate apps, for example different projects that have the same icon. This way just write something on top and you can find it quickly. And actually I use some blank icons that i made, this way the text is not overlapping anything important.

This is a problem if you have many documents, internet site links or applications in the same tab.
I have over 150 shortcuts I would like to place in sTabLauncher but like most of these type of programs you have to remember all the icons or hover over them to see the description.
Suggestion 1
You have options for the "Description location above or below" but no option to permanetly display the normal description without hovering over the icon.This would be great. But you would have to allow the user to manually space the icons, perhaps a setting called "icon spacing manual and a value" And if the icons position could be adjustable up or down so that two lines of text could be displayed above or below the icon that would be perfect.
Suggestion 2
Allow the existing icon text to be moved to above or below the icon space
Allow the icon position to be adjustable up or down so that two lines of text could be displayed above or below the icon
Allow manually spacing of icons to increase the available space for text

Thanks for listening. Smile

Regards
Meme

Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Posts: 2

Sorry I forgot to say how good I thought your program is... its great, the amount of user customization is wonderful and it has a very user friendly feeling.

While some people are more concerned with how menu programs look, I am more concerned with how easy it is to use. It really good when you don't even realise your using it.

I have modified the appearance so all tabs are the same colour and only the tab header changes to show you which tab is selected.

I would like to be able to display text under the icons as displayed below

This makes it possible to display website address, document names, file names, picture names etc under the icon.

Thanks again
Meme

Joined: 26 Oct 2009 Posts: 2

I really second this request.

I also think it's a brilliant utility, but implementing this would make it much better.

Joined: 22 Jun 2009 Posts: 3 Location: Puerto Rico

If you think that imposing text or anything over icons is a good idea, think again, it is not, it's a huge mistake. If you think that that is good then you do not know how the graphic artists that make icons think.

Graphics artists are almost fanatical about their creations and they don't like anything to mar the look of their icons at all. This icon creation thing is almost a subcultural thing, no not almost, it is a subcultural thing and some icon artists even consider this another medium of art expression, why do you think that many icon artists spend so much time creating pixel art style icons when we have had antialiased icon methods for such a long time already? It is just one of many styles of icons that artists create.

Some people spend a big amount of time and effort just creating beautiful icons and as a matter of fact if you look over the web you will find artists that are dedicated to create icons only! There are website that even sell only icons, and there are people that even collect icons in case you didn't know.

In case that you don't know or for anybody that doesn't know there is a considerable amount of effort in the creation of a good quality icon. Many people take this for granted but it is quite involved and it takes great effort and talent to create good icons, is not as simple as it looks.

I've seen many, many people just protest the arrow that Microsoft puts over the icon shortcuts and many people go to great lengths to remove it. Many people have removed it, as a matter of fact I modify it in all my computers and put a custom one that is smaller so it doesn't cover the icons so much and many people do just that too.

Putting text over the icons, Ufffff! I can almost guarantee that artists and other people will protest and object to that very badly, myself included, trust me on that one.

I like the idea of text for icons but in the same fashion that the OS shows the text on the desktop, BELOW IT even if you have to increase the size of the program skin considerably to include enough space to put the text below and I think that you have to put small text to do that anyway or maybe adjustable size text. In the desktop, many times the icon text is really small but the OS icon text size can be adjusted and that's even better and that's the way it really should be and icons spacing can be adjusted too, that's one of the reasons all this is adjustable in operating systems so the user is satisfied with how it all fits together.

I also think that this has to be an option and not forced so your users can choose between icons with text and icons without it but I know that if you make it an option and you have to adjust the size of the program skin that creates another problem which is that the skin will have to have two sizes, a higher one for text and a lower one for no text. An option to deal with that is to create skins that contain both graphics, a high one and a low one. Or just make the icons with the text below and a higher skin, one option only.

Yes I know that then we will have older incompatible skins if we use new higher skins but other skinnable programs have done it and artists have had to create new program version skins, they have had to adjust them, this is not new, it happens sometimes to make programs better.

As you can see this text thing is not that simple a problem but it can be solved, it just have to be implemented correctly and thoroughly so if you do implement it go the full monty and implement it right.