Emerge Desktop is a replacement windows "shell" (the desktop environment normally provided by Windows Explorer) for Windows 2000 and above.
In order to replace Windows Explorer as a shell, From a design point of view, Emerge Desktop applets are capable of being run as both standalone as well as being integrated.a system tray (the area that collects the icons collected at the lower right corner in Explorer), called emergeTray.
It will also provide access to the users programs (normally accessed with the windows "start" button) via a right-click on the desktop, via emergeCore
Emerge Desktop has an open API, which allows for applets to be coded with compilers other than MinGW if someone wishes to do so. In fact Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 project and workspace files are available in CVS in case someone wants to use them.
From a design point of view, Emerge Desktop applets are capable of being run as both standalone as well as being integrated.
In order for Emerge Desktop applets to communicate with each other, emergeCore must be running. Without emergeCore, each applet will run independently (if, for example, you wish to use them in conjunction with another desktop shell).
What's New in This Release:
New:
· Theme support
· Dynamic positioning
· Support for 'Run As'
· Re-added 'My Documents' Special Folder
· Created native 64-bit version of Emerge Desktop
· Context menu for emergeDesktop menu items (right click on a item to activate them)
New Internal Commands:
· VWM_1 to VWM_9 - jump to VWM desktop
New EmergeVars:
· AppletDir% - location of Emerge Desktop applets
· EmergeDir% - location of Emerge Desktop configuration files
· ThemeDir% - location of current theme
New applets:
· emergeSysMon - a system resource monitor
· emergePower - a battery charge monitor)
· reg2xml - a utility to convert previous registry based settings to an XML
· based Theme
· Relative paths for schemes
· Colorful startup Theme functionally similar to Explorer
· Ability to run as a self contained/portable shell
Changed:
· Switched from storing settings in the registry to storing settings in XML
· files
· improved fullscreen checking
· Improved shortcut handling
· Multi-tabbed configuration for each applet
· New icons
...