My First Project

Hey, i'm working on my first VB '10 Project, Its called DigiDX App Launcher, if you think of it like a start menu, your entitled to your opinion, but i'm building this project to save space on your desktop. I recently found my desktop being riddled with links to a lot of program suites like adobe. So i decided to delete all the links, and make an easily hide-able link dock.

You may say there are alot of programs like this out there, but it's just a project for me to work on to expand my understanding of VB, as it's very limited. I'm also including several widgets to help you keep control of your PC easily, like the PowerWidget, which gives you a quick access panel to logging off, restarting and shutting down your computer, which I plan to include a location to enter an amount of time before the selected operation will wait until it carries out.

So below is a link, if I post saying i've updated the file on this link is updated, and hopefully the picture too.

Link: Download DigiDX-AL Project File.
Pic: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7310599/Aaro...creenshots.png

SORRY Forgot the link LOL!
New Link On Down The Page.

There :)

Virus total scan: http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/b...519-1274360777
Just incase, i know new users are suspicious lol. (Its clean :) )

Bump... Images anyone :)? http://i50.tinypic.com/xkyky0.png

Source uploaded, i understand that its against the rules to post EXE files, so the Solution has been uploaded ^_^
Thusly the updates i made are in it, including my icon, Glass window for Adobecs4 window :) I hope people do test this out and give me feedback, and where i should go next, Thanks :)

I admittedly haven't downloaded this and tried it out myself (as I'm at work at the moment), but your app looks interesting. Is this supposed to be an application just for you or will it be for anyone? If its supposed to be for more people then maybe you can think about how you would go about making the program more generic, for example I may want to add other applications onto the launcher or may not want some of the ones you have on there. So if there was a way for you to dynamically new links and remove old links that would be useful, I'm not certain how you would go about doing this for the extended version but I would think that the basic would be a bit easier to do.

A couple other points that I can tell from your screen prints;
You've got "Designed Coded by..." assume thats supposed to have an & in between them and your "Command Prompt" button appears to be bigger than any of the others is it supposed to be like that?

Finally I would just like to say that I wish my first project had been as creative and unique as this one :thumb:

Wow thanks satel, yes its supposed to be bigger because its generally more important than the rest lol, I may make it the same size as the rest though. And yeh, the & didnt correctly go in, i'll write and in there :P

And your right about that, i may release certain versions for different program ranges, or have a larger selection of launchers, like "Adobe cs4" "Cs5" "Microsoft office" ect, the basic edition is for people who dont use editing programs, and the cs4&5 are popouts so your not riddled with links to programs you dont have lol, will take your suggestions into consideration, thanks for the feedback ;)

How is it "personalized"?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by minitech

How is it "personalized"?

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Yeah... I was trying to understand that too. To me, "personalized" means the ability to change the apps to whatever the user wants to. Having predefined buttons that can't be changed isn't personalized.

It could be set as a template... but that's it.

Because the programs they open are personally programs I use, so its personal to me, I was gonna make like "Development Personal" That would have Adobe programs & Visual Studio on them, The basic speaks for itself, ect like that. I'm currently adding a Power widget which allows you to shut down or reset your computer :P

Just thought it would be a fun thing to work on as my first project, because I can easily keep expanding and adding it, for example if i make a text editor i can add that in, but for a full version I'll probably just call it DigitalisDX Desktop Widget, or something along those lines :)

I don't have Visual Studio 2010 on this computer, but by viewing the images I would give your application an 8 out of 10.
It's a nice layout for someone who's only beginner, especially the images of the adobe applications.
Also, the idea of a basic and extended launcher is not bad.

This application actually helps you if you want to start some applications faster.

Thanks Cooi, Thats the idea, to not litter your desktop with links, but instead have hideable menu's that are quicker to access than the start menu in some cases (of slow computers lol)

Thanks for the rating, im expanding it with some more options like a shutdown widget ect :)
Plus, ive implimented the Windows7 Aero Background from the codebank into the AdobeCS4 launcher bar :)

I'm changing this post because of the update.

I'll check this out when I get home (High School filters block Mediafire & Images), but it sounds interesting.

oh cool thanks :)

Its not running on my m8s comp cause its .net 4Beta, how do i change the .net it runs on, or cant i? :(

Looks good. Gonna download when I'm at my pc with win7.

Good stuff :) Tell me what yah think :D

not bad for a first project, but here's some suggestions.

you could basically make that program VERY fast by throwing a few buttons on a form and attaching a Process.Start() line to each click event. Not the hardest thing in the world. What would be nice would be (as suggested earlier), giving the user the ability to add/delete their own applications. By hard-coding the applications, you basically segregate users that don't have those applications, but would like the functionality.

Your "next" project could be trying to implement that and maybe some kind of "docking" functionality to have it auto-hide or stay in place on the screen while you work (like Vista's Sidebar, but less sh*tty :) ) I think this would actually add a BENEFIT to the application, as you've basically coded a Start menu that I have to go find.

I'm not saving any clicks by using your application.

Another cool feature would be to save "groupings" of commonly used applications so a user could launch multiple apps at the same time to create a "workspace" that they frequently used (like launching Notepad++, Firefox, and FileZilla simultaneously)

Very good ideas stateofidleness, i'd have to look into how to code the ability to add buttons, im guessing it would'nt be THAT hard xD

And that groups idea is really good too! Im used to coding in flash, so i wouldn't really know where to start... any direction you could point me in code wise? :P Thanks for your comments! :)

You should use IO.File.Exists to check if the files exist, if they don't, remove their buttons.

Updated the first post, when I update the project and image, it will automatically change on the first post :) Thanks to dropBox!

I can't open it. It says im missing Digitalus ~ Personal App Launcher.vbproj

Ahh wth lol, I'l reupload in a sec ^_^

It's reuploaded now, sorry about that :)

Looks okay, needs some work in the coding like "on error resume blablabla". Good luck :)