Desktop Minder has two settings sheets. One belongs to a desktop and says what that desktop is called, where its folder is, what is behind it and which tabs show. The other belongs to the program and says what every desktop does unless a place says otherwise: whether file names show their extensions, which plug-ins are on, the colors, what Compress and Uncompress do with the original, how files are numbered, whether to look for a newer version, and how the program sits with Windows. Neither has an OK button. Everything you change is changed as you change it. This page goes through every setting, what it starts as, and where it is kept.

Opening the Settings

Both sheets open in the View, like any other document, and both are on the menu you get by right-clicking a desktop's tab:

• Desktop Settings... opens the sheet for that desktop. Ctrl+, (Ctrl and the comma key, as in most programs that have preferences) opens the same sheet for the desktop you are on.
• Desktop Minder Settings... opens the program's own sheet. It is also a tile called Desktop Minder Settings in This PC, and opening the file Desktop Minder.dmini in your Apps\Cilwa folder shows the same sheet.

There is never anything to save. A tick, a color or a typed name is kept the moment you make it. If a setting can't be written down (a read-only folder, say), the sheet reads it back and shows what is really in force, so it never claims a change that didn't happen.

A Desktop's Settings

This is the sheet for one desktop. It is about the tab you right-clicked, not the one you happen to be on, so you can open Desktop Settings... for any tab. Its title in the View is the desktop's name with (Desktop Settings) after it. The Desktops page says what a desktop is; this is what you can change about one.

Name and Location

Name is what is on the tab. Type a new one and press Enter, or click away; the tab changes as you do. A name another desktop already has is refused, with the reason shown in red at the foot of the sheet. Home keeps its name, so for Home this box is grayed. (Right-clicking the tab and choosing Rename, or clicking the tab of the desktop you are already on, does the same thing.)

Location is the desktop's folder. Type a path and press Enter, or press Change... and pick a folder (Make New Folder is offered there). The folder is made if it isn't there. Nothing is moved: what was in the old folder stays in the old folder, and the desktop simply shows the new one. After a change the sheet opens again for the new folder.

Background

The wallpaper behind the desktop. The picker is the same one the + page uses, and offers:

• Image: one of the pictures that come with the program, chosen from the list, with a small preview;
• Browse...: a picture file of your own. A copy is kept in the desktop's folder, so the original can go wherever it likes afterwards. A file that can't be read as a picture is refused with a message;
• (none): no wallpaper, so the desktop shows plain Windows color;
• Color: a plain color, from a row of ten that are most often wanted or More..., which opens Windows' own color chooser.

It is on the desktop the instant you choose it. Choosing Image after a color brings back the last picture.

Side Tabs

Two lists with a tick beside each tab that is showing. Left, on this desktop is the strip of launcher tabs down the left of this desktop only. Right, on every desktop is the strip of panels down the right, which every desktop shares, which is why the list says so. Tick a tab and it is on the strip; untick it and it is gone, before you let go of the mouse. The same lists are on the strip's right-click menu as Standard Tabs and Side Tabs. What each tab is, is on the Launchers page.

Deleting a Desktop

Delete This Desktop... does what the tab's Delete Desktop does: it asks first, then takes the desktop off your tabs and off the + page's list, closes what it launched, and forgets its layout. The folder and everything in it are left alone. Home can't be deleted, and neither can the last desktop that is left; the button is grayed, and resting the pointer on it says why. If you want a desktop put away without forgetting it, use Close Desktop on the tab menu instead.

Desktop Minder Settings

The program's sheet is one page, in this order from the top. Each group is its own heading here.

Folders

One box: Show extensions. It is what a folder does when it hasn't chosen for itself, and it starts on, because that is how every listing looked before there was a choice. A single folder can choose differently on its own View menu (Extensions) and keeps its choice; a folder whose choice happens to match this one writes nothing down. An extension that neither Desktop Minder nor Windows recognizes is always shown, since it is the only thing saying what the file is. The Folders page has the rest of what a folder remembers.

Plug-Ins

A list of the plug-ins found, each with a tick. A plug-in is a folder holding a DLL of the same name, put in a Plugins folder beside Desktop Minder or in Plugins under your Apps\Cilwa folder. Notes and Wikipedia are the two that come with the program. Every plug-in starts off: code nobody asked for doesn't run. Ticking one takes effect the next time Desktop Minder starts. The exception is a plug-in that is an icon library (marked theme in the list), which has no code to start and applies at once. One that couldn't load shows why beside its name and can't be ticked. The Notes page describes the first.

Theme

A drop-down of the themes there are. The one that comes with the program is called Gingerbread, and it is what you have until you choose another. Any other theme is an icon library you have made a plug-in and switched on (above): it brings its own icons, for mail among other things, and its own starting colors. Choosing one applies at once.

A theme is a starting point, not a leash. Its colors are written into the same settings the next section edits, so if you then change a color it stays changed, and Default on a color puts back what Windows would use, not what the theme said. What a theme keeps hold of is its icons, which are drawn from the library for as long as it is the chosen one. If you switch off the plug-in behind the chosen theme, you are put back on Gingerbread. (Not to be confused with the Themes a web page can wear, which are style sheets; those are on the Text page.)

Colors

Six colors, each a row: a swatch, what it is for, and a Default button that is grayed until you have changed it. Click a swatch to choose another with Windows' color chooser.

The Accent Color Rule

The frame and the tabs follow Windows until you say otherwise. Desktop Minder reads the color Windows paints a title bar with: your accent color if Show accent color on title bars and window borders is on in Windows' own personalization settings, otherwise the plain light or dark of your Windows theme. Then it thins that out to half strength toward white, because the title bar's own color was too bold across a whole strip. If you change your accent in Windows, the strips change with it, a moment later, while the program is running. So if the frame looks wrong, look at Windows' accent first. Once you choose a color the frame stops following Windows and wears what you chose; Default sends it back to following. How pale the strips are isn't a setting yet.

Compressed Files

One box: Uncompress and Compress replace the original, which starts on. Once everything has come out whole, Uncompress puts the .zip, .7z, .rar or other compressed file in the Recycle Bin and keeps the folder it made; Compress does the same with a folder once its .zip is made and checked. So one thing is left where there was one thing. Nothing is replaced if anything went wrong, or where there is no Recycle Bin (a network or removable drive). Hold Ctrl as you choose either command to keep the original this once; untick the box to keep it always. More on the Folders page.

Numbering Files

The Style drop-down says how Normalize, Filename numbers a selection in a folder that has no numbering of its own to follow. There are six: 1., 01., 1), 01), A) and [01]. It starts at [01]. A folder whose first item is already numbered keeps that style; this is the style for any other. Numbers are padded with zeros so the names sort in order. The Folders page shows it at work.

Updates

Check for Updates looks, right now, at a small file on Paul's website that says which Setup is newest. The program's version is the day it was built, so the comparison is a date. A status line says how it is going and the pointer shows the wait cursor. If the website's version is no newer, you are told so (and which version you have). If it is newer you are asked, and nothing is downloaded unless you say Yes. The Setup is checked once it arrives, and you are asked again before Desktop Minder is closed to run it.

The box Look for a new version when Desktop Minder starts does the same look by itself, about twenty seconds after the program starts, so it stays out of the way of start-up. It starts off: nothing goes out over the network that nobody asked for. Looking only reads the file; it asks the same two questions. The newest Setup is also on the Download page.

Windows

Two boxes and a button, last on the sheet.

• Start with Windows runs Desktop Minder when you sign in.
• Make Desktop Minder the Windows shell takes the place of Explorer's desktop and taskbar the next time you sign in. It is grayed until the first box is ticked, and unticking the first unticks it. It is set for you alone; another account on the same computer still gets Explorer. Untick it to have Explorer back at the next sign-in. If Desktop Minder will not start, Ctrl+Shift+Esc, Run new task, explorer.exe opens Explorer.
• Uninstall Desktop Minder..., at the far bottom right, apart from the settings because it isn't one. It starts the uninstaller and closes the program, which can't remove itself while it runs. The uninstaller asks whether to go on and whether to keep your settings. The button is grayed, with a tip saying why, on a copy that wasn't put there by Setup.

Where Everything Is Kept

Paul's rule is that a choice made on one computer is wanted on the other, so anything that can live in a file in your OneDrive does, and the registry is used only for what has to be known before any folder can be found. Every settings file has the extension .dmini (OneDrive stopped backing up .ini files). The program registers that extension for you alone when it starts, so double-clicking a .dmini in Explorer opens Desktop Minder.

In the Folder

A desktop is a folder, so its settings travel with it: copy the folder to another computer, or let OneDrive do it, and the desktop looks the same there. The same goes for any folder. If it has no Desktop.dmini, it has never been customized. Windows' own desktop.ini is read, to borrow a sensible default, but never written. Don't tidy a Desktop.dmini away: it is the folder's columns, sort order and Show Hidden choice, which is why the program asks before it offers to delete one.

In Apps\Cilwa

The program's own sheet is kept here, in OneDrive when you have one, beside the icon library. On a computer with no OneDrive it falls back to the same ordinary per-computer place the icon library does, where nothing was going to travel anyway. A color you changed on one computer is therefore the color on the other, and the theme and the plug-ins you switched on are too (the plug-in files are wherever you put them).

In the Registry

The registry holds the roster of desktops because it has to be readable before any desktop's folder is known; the right strip's open panels and widths are kept there so they carry from one desktop to the next; and the ad blocking switch lives there too. Settings kept in the registry stop dead at the edge of that computer, which is why there are so few of them.