ObjectDesktop Launchpad review

Published on May 4, 2005 By ZubaZ In WinCustomize Talk

I saw the screenshot of this the other day Link and thought, "What a cool idea." After giving it a try I have to say that it's not as cool as I had hoped.

The oppertunities for improvement:
It's big. At 1280x1024 it takes up 1/16th of my screen. Why not resize it like Will Rose's Animated Weather Link?

It only looks natural at the bottom of the screen. Why not build it to change shape when moved to different positions like Tiggz' awesome Killer Meters Link?

It doesn't need the label that it's the ObjectDesktop Launchpad. Add an option to hide it and the controls.

Not installed programs do nothing when clicked. They should take a user to SDC and start the download.

It doesn't allow you to hide or add apps. I am not a Skin Studio user. I would love to be able to go to a tab in preferences and turn off SKS. Even better, I would love to add CursorXP, or OD+, or ThinkSync.

The things I liked:

Design is good. I like the transparency and the shape. The color looks cood and the combination of colors allows for good hue shift if a user wants to go that route.

Application grouping is nice. It took me a second, but the fact that the productivity tools, skin creation, and skin application programns were grouped together made a lot of sense (and may drive me to try some of the other apps).

In the end, I think ObjectDesktop Launchpad is a nice piece of marketing. I think that I'll stick with an OD+ icon that loads a Stardock folder as a menu. It allows for more control with less space. Too bad I'll miss out on some of the eye-candy.

Comments

Wildharp

on May 04, 2005

I like it but then I have OD links on Object Dock Plus as well as other links so I probably won't wear both a belt AND braces. Interesting that it works like a dream on my work laptop but crashes on my home PC. I'll have to figure that one out. Stardock deserves good mag reviews.

GhoS

on May 04, 2005

I think its a nice design, but at least for me its not needed. I rarely open the programs themselves. If I needed to access them daily I could see the need.
I also agree that its bad that its so large even under higher resolutions and/or not collapsible in some manner.

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