36 replies to this topic 2 votes

[alexappleton]

Growing frustratingly tired of trying to click the start button in the bottom left corner with multiple monitors and RDP sessions in full screen I decided to do something about it. Figured the easiest way was to create a simple executable that simply sends keys (ctrl+esc) and pin it to the taskbar. I gave it the new fancy logo as the icon and it seems to work well. Following the same idea, I did the same thing to call the legacy shutdown box and pinned this to my start menu in metro. This is solving my two biggest annoyances with using the metro UI on the desktop so I thought I'd share.

See more here including the download links for the two executables: http://bit.ly/PJvsOR

[.fahim]

Very nice!

[Ice_Blue]

Not bad!

http://www.neowin.ne...__fromsearch__1

[oliver182]

Some feedback, change the icon, it doesn't look so good...

[alexappleton]

Yeah, I don't like the shutdown icon either, but I'll sort it out later. Looking for a metro style icon, but when I make it transparent it doesn't look that great. Thanks for the feedback.

Also, I know some of you are thinking why can't I just hit the win key button for the start menu. Well I deal with a lot of servers, and sometimes I have to use keyboards directly attached to them. Most of the time these keyboards are whatever is lying around at the customers site that typically don't have a win key, or I am dealing with a pull out KVM tray which 9 times out of 10 doesn't have the win key.

[+Ely]

Very nice, thanks a lot, and yeah I'm not liking the Shutdown icon either lol, the Start Screen icon is nice though, how about using the Shutdown icon from the Metro Icon pack from: http://dakirby309.de...Icons-280724102 you could try asking the author for permission.

Also I would love it if there was a way to push the Start Screen icon to the very left corner of the superbar, is there a way to do this?

[StanP]

Nice apps, the only thing I would like to see added is a "Lock" selection in the choice menu of the Shutdown app. Other than that...both work well. Thanks

[alexappleton]

Ely, on 27 August 2012 - 18:52, said:

Very nice, thanks a lot, and yeah I'm not liking the Shutdown icon either lol, the Start Screen icon is nice though, how about using the Shutdown icon from the Metro Icon pack from: http://dakirby309.de...Icons-280724102 you could try asking the author for permission.

Thanks for the tip! Yeah, I'm not very good at the graphic design stuff so I'll contact this guy and see if he doesn't mind me using his icon.

[StanP]

Ely, on 27 August 2012 - 18:52, said:

Very nice, thanks a lot, and yeah I'm not liking the Shutdown icon either lol, the Start Screen icon is nice though, how about using the Shutdown icon from the Metro Icon pack from: http://dakirby309.de...Icons-280724102 you could try asking the author for permission.

Also I would love it if there was a way to push the Start Screen icon to the very left corner of the superbar, is there a way to do this?

The only way I have found would be to use the Quick Launch Toolbar and then place a shortcut for the Start app in the QL folder, same as I did with the Shutdown app.

Attached Images

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[shockz]

ALT+F4 > Shutdown / Restart ?

[+Ely]

StanP, on 27 August 2012 - 19:05, said:

The only way I have found would be to use the Quick Launch Toolbar and then place a shortcut for the Start app in the QL folder, same as I did with the Shutdown app.

Very nice setup there, looking good How exactly do you go about adding the Quick Launch toolbar? I no longer see an option to enable that?

[StanP]

Here you go....it's pretty easy and better than the default bar icons, mainly because you can add and remove what you want when you want, by just drag and drop.

http://www.eightforu...-8-a.html?ltr=Q

[+Ely]

StanP, on 27 August 2012 - 19:19, said:

Here you go....it's pretty easy and better than the default bar icons, mainly because you can add and remove what you want when you want, by just drag and drop.

http://www.eightforu...-8-a.html?ltr=Q

Thanks StanP, it's a good method, but then the icons on taskbar look a little above the bottom edge of the screen like in your screenshot , I didn't notice this before untill I tried this myself hehe, the only way to put them back where they are supposed to be is by choosing "Small Icons" on the Quick Launch bar options, but then again the Start icon looks weird being so small lol, I wonder if there's a way to fix this.

[StanP]

These are the icons I used http://browse.devian...+Icons#/d4n4w3q

I think if you replace the icon of the shortcut for the start button with the one from this set it will shrink down and look ok. Try it...got nothing to loose.

[ahhell]

This is a nice idea for RDP sessions.