Didn't see anything about this shell, so figure I post...

http://emergedesktop.org/

It is minimalistic, and has many BB similarities. Supposedly the author used to develop for bb4win. I am liking it, it is pretty simple and neat.

Although I do like it being simple with not too many confusing fancy little plugins and what not, I would personally like seeing a few more for this shell. There are always a couple third party ones to try....

That he did. ironhead was the lead developer for BB4Win from the BB4Win/Xoblite split (0.72 i believe) through the early .9 betas iirc. Originally eMerge was his playground for testing new features and stuff, then it became a project in and of itself. He's a good guy

Emerge eats 40 MB Ram, giving 4 modules....
Yes, I know that tastes differ.

Hi all

Just a short message to let you know that Emerge Desktop release 4.1 is out.
It is a user friendly alternate shell with simplified interface (no manual editing of rc files )

Give it a try! I'm sure some of of you will like it

http://emergedesktop.org/

Hi all

In case anyone is interested in trying a Windows alternate shell (other than BB4win) here is the announcement of the release of Emerge Desktop build 4.1.2

http://emergedesktop.org/

Have fun with Emerge Desktop!

Hi guys

The fifth version of Emerge Desktop has been released.

What is new? A lot!

First of all it is the first alternative shell for Windows that has both x86 and x64 versions.
Second, all settings have moved from the registry to XML based files.
Which leads to Third: ability to run as a self contained/portable shell even from an external/thumb drive!

More information and download links here
http://www.emergedesktop.org/phpBB2/vie ... php?t=1033

Ah, and there is a new Themes site as well
http://edsata.e-sushi.net/

I hope you enjoy it

Well, that part is most definitely not working so well, at least for me running eMerge on top of Vista Explorer:
*no right-click menu
*Start menu not working, instead, the normal Windows task bar is brought to the foreground
*no tray
*emerge.exe not working - or how is one to start this?

Update: Looks like one has to run emergeCore.exe to get this going... now most things are working - the menu, right-clicking...
But it's still not a portable shell like bb in that the Windows taskbar won't go away and the tray app won't show (it is running).

Update 2: Read your shell-switching tips, that got rid of the taskbar. Now if only the tray icons would be larger...
And is there a way to save the configuration and theme in the program directory? I suppose the current scheme is to allow a multi-user environment, but it does not lend itself to real portability.

I apologize for not stopping by. I assure you that support is much better at the eD.org forum
I'm glad you solved most of your problems

The tray icon size is (apparently) limited by Windows. I think that Vista and Win7 support larger icons but most programs don't use them anyway...

emerge desktop can be 100% portable. You just need to move all files (in particular theme.xml) located in %AppData%\Emerge Desktop\ to the folder containing the binaries. To do this, Quit the shell (just type Quit in emergeCommand), move the files and reload emergeCore.

Have fun!