Desktop - Reduce work area

In DesktopX you have the option to reduce the amount of screen space available to applications. This means that maximised applications will not invade this space, which makes it a useful area to place objects the you always want to have access to.

To make an area, click the 'Apply' box, then enter pixels in the other boxes to define the amount of space you want at each side of the screen.

Desktop - Screen resolutions

A properly created theme will be resolution independent. It may be the case however that your theme works best at certain resolutions. If this is the case you should check the resolutions at which your theme works. This means that if a person loads the theme at a resolution other than these they will be prompted to confirm they want to load the theme. They can load it, but must realise it may not work at it's best

Desktop - Z-order

If you imagine your screen is 3D, Z-order is the 'depth' of the screen. Objects at the top of the Z-order are closest to you, above ther objects, while things lower in the Z-order may be hidden underneath other objects. By default, when you click on a DesktopX object, it moves to the top of the Z-order like Windows applications do when you click on them. With this however, you can choose to specify that objects in your theme have a fixed Z-order. This means that objects will stay in the same position above or below the objects around them even if you click them.

Desktop - Hide taskbar / desktop icons

These two checkboxes allow you to hide some of the elements of the standard Windows interface. If you hide the explorer taskbar, it makes sense to ensure you have already created objects to replacate any functionality you need, such as the taskbar or system tray.

If you hide the desktop icons you will gain access to the DesktopX menu by right clicking the desktop.

Wallpaper

You have 2 options for defining your desktop background, a wallpaper, solid colour or both.

You can select a wallpaper file pretty much as you would do in Windows. You can also choose wether to 'centre' this graphic on your screen, 'tile' it so it repeats until it fills your screen, or 'resize' it so it fills your screen.

You can also choose to fill your screen with a solid colour. If you choose this in addition to choosing a wallpaper, this colour will fill any area not filled by the wallpaper.

 

Labels

When you create objects you can create labels that appear next to them.

This section allows you to customize how these labels will look. The 'disposition' is the position of the label relative to the object. 'Top' for example, places labels in this them above the objects they are associated with.

The 'offset' is the number of pixels away from the object that they appear.

You can also set the colours and font for the labels.

For the colours, you can either use the default system colours or specify your own. Specifing your own means you specify the text and background colour for both when the object is select and unselected.

For the font, you can use the system font or choose a font from the font dialogue box.