This clever little program was developed by Lee-Soft, some of you may know them as the creators of;
"ViStart" (Vista start menu)
"ViSplore" (Vista file manager)
anyway, here's a few screens i took 2 show you.
This was my origional start button (no it isnt standard, its a theme called "Royale Remixed", i have a patched uxtheme.dll so i can use unsigned themes. if any of you want to know how to do that just ask)
then after i downloaded ViOrb, this is the standard theme that it comes with
pretty awesome huh! it uses like no resources and it looks great!
so now im sure your thinking "yeah thats kinda cool... i might try that" but just restrain yourself a moment longer.
those of you who know me know i fiddle...a lot... i think i can improve EVERYTHING...i swear its a desise lol.
anyway, after a little googling, i found out you can customise what the orb looks like! its entirely run of a .png file stored in the ViOrb installation folder. Here is the standard one for you to have a look at, i think you'll get where im going by now but i'll be thouragh.
now, a little bit of insight, you will notice there are 3 *slightly* different orbs there and they are as follows.
Top = idle (when you don't have your mouse over the start button or have it clicked)
Mid = highlighted (mouse over the orb, not clicked)
Low = clicked (after you click the start button you may notice that it gets a little darker than usual)
now, the *photoshoply minded* amoung you will think like i did... "hey i could do a better job of that!" and indeed you can! the developers at lee-soft also created a theme organiser so that you can have as many different themes as you like! you can change it daily if you choose!!!
anyway, here's my attempt.
and for those of you who like it, here's the PNG of it. i call it "Apple Remix 2.5" (...took me a while 2 get it that clean)
anyway. sorry i ramble so much, here are the download links.
ViOrb - ViOrb Beta (not released yet) - ViOrb Theme Manager
And a link to where to find a handful of themes HERE
now just a couple of final notes for those of you who really like this little app. these r a little technical
1) the program does not put a shortcut on the desktop or start menu. so if you want to run the app you might want to make one. to do this, navigate to "C:\Program Files\ViOrb" and you'l find the .exe in there. so right click and copy that, then go 2 your desktop, right click and paste shortcut dont just paste. this creates a little shortcut that you can just run as and when you want to run the app.
2) if like me you think this app is really cool and you want it to run automaticaly as soon as you load windows, then go to the same directory as before and copy the app, then go to start/all programs/startup then right click and explore that folder. then simply right click and paste shortcut in there. job done.
3) to uninstall the app (i wont ask your reasons) simply navigate to C:\Program Files\ViOrb then double click "Kill App" thats the uninstaller... dunno why they called it that...
4) if the app stops responding and it wont work, you might want to close it whilst in windows. to do that simply press Ctrl+Alt+Del thenin task manager "end task" on ViOrb. but when you do that you will notice that the start button just vanishes... thats kinda worse... so to solve this, go over to "processes" in task manager and end task on "explorer" this will make everything on your desktop vanish. now press Ctrl+Alt+Del again then go to file/new task, and then type explorer and then press enter. your back running xp with the standard start button again.
5) if you dont really like the Viorb Theme manager, you can do it manualy. to do this navigate to C:\Program Files\ViOrb\Resources and in there you will find a png called "Flag" to swap that for one of your own making, rename that one to something else, then move yours in there and name that flag.
Note: do this while ViOrb is CLOSED. run it after compleating the transaction.
thats all i can b bothered to write... feels like a chuffing essay!
anyway there you go, hope it helps.
Matty0 x
