The
default theme that appears after your install DesktopX not only provides you
with a great desktop but also provides you lots of examples to learn from. You
Desktop, The Web, Readme Notes, etc. are all objects. If you right click on
any of them you can see their properties and change their properties. An easy
way to see how these things work and to make your first one is to click on Samples
- the briefcase. You can see that when you mouse over, it opens for papers.
In the default theme, it does nothing when you click on it. You can make it
do nearly anything. Let's try making it the gateway to Notepad.
Right click
on Samples
Click on Properties
In the first
window (where Directory Shortcut is filled in), click the dropdown and select
Program Shortcut
Then click on
Configure
Browse for Notepad.exe
and select it for the program/shortcut filename
For now, you
can leave the other two options as default (you can come back and play with
them later
Change the label
to Notepad
You can, by
clicking on appearances, even add sound - click on the Sound tab and then
the drop down and pick one of the sounds that are there.
Now, click on
Relation and let's change the behavior.
Drop down the
Command window and select Single Click
Click on Apply.
Now just click
on your new Notepad briefcase... the case opens up and voila! you've got your
notepad.
Click around the other
objects that are there and study their various properties and soon you'll get
ideas of your own. But, there are lots of objects around for you to grab and make
your own. Objects come with an extension of .dxpack. To get one to your desktop,
right mouse click on your DesktopX icon and select Import Object, then find the
object downloaded and it's magically added to your current theme. To change themes
- these have an extension of .dxtheme - right mouse click on your DesktopX icon
and select Load Theme. You'll be asked if you want to save your theme and then
be transported so you can select your new theme. You can take objects found in
themes and slice them out to use in a different theme. The easiest way for a beginner
to do this is load the theme where you found the cool object. Right mouse click
on the object you want and select Export Selected. Give your object a name and
save it. Now load the theme you want and select Import Object and there it is
in your own theme!
