14 DAY TRIAL // Many of my friends have the bad habit of keeping lots of shortcuts on the desktop (easy reach, they say). I for one always liked a clean desktop with no more than ten icons on it. Everything else I needed a shortcut for was cramped in the QuickLaunch bar, Total Commander or the keys on my multimedia keyboard. Dividing them into groups or categories and creating toolbars also helped a lot. I would look for any solution just to keep them off my desktop.
There aren't too many reasons why you should not keep many icons on your desktop, but the few of them are very stern. First of all there is no loss if you keep shortcuts from programs, but if you extend the habit to placing documents, downloaded files and God knows what, you may find yourself in a bit of a trouble should the operating system fail on you. Plus it is not functional. If there are few icons it is easy to find the one you need, but the more crowded the space gets, the more difficult it is for you to find what you need.
And yet today I had to place as many elements on the desktop, just to see the qualities of an application. Desktop Icon Toy is a small app designed to allow you diddling with the icons on the desktop. The program gives you almost total control over the elements of your desktop and, if you are out killing some time it is the perfect solution that keeps you captivated without learning a thing. It gives you the total state of relaxation and the sense of no care in the world.
For those that have already tried the software, I know there are drugs that do a better job at relaxing and taking all the worries away, but Desktop Icon Toy is on the safe, legal side and provides healthier an activity.
The playground is your desktop and the toys are the icons on it. There is no interface and you'll have to deal only with the settings. These are accessed from the context menu of the tray icon. You can set different layouts for your icons so as to form dissimilar shapes like stars (4, 5 and 6 pointed), seven kinds of hearts, polygonal forms or something else.
My favorite is clock shape as it forms a clock from your icons and the smart part is that they are refreshed as time goes by. The downside is that the form is designed from a limited number of icons and the rest is arranged at the top of the screen. A better idea would have been to use all of them and make a larger, more visible clock.
Each layout can be saved but you cannot choose from different ones as it will replace the last one saved. So you should be careful if you plan on returning to the initial position of the icons on the desktop.
Animation options are available in the application but these imply only a little bounce whenever you hover the mouse of the desktop item or when double clicking it. Now this feature may be handy for those with problems launching a shortcut. But there is more to this function as it allows you to slide the icons all around the desktop.
Simply enable "Mouse Drag and Drop" from Animate Icon menu and start throwing them on the desktop. The harder you throw them the greater their speed and the fun.
More functional aspects of the software are to be found in Icon hiding. All the elements of the desktop can be hidden at a specific activity: when the mouse is of the icon area or when it is not on the desktop at all. A supplementary option allows you to throw the invisibility cloak on all the icons on the desktop. This way you will no longer have to worry about placing shortcuts when installing new software as they will not be visible anyway.
Eliminating the shortcut overlay (that little arrow up in the lower left corner of the icon itself) is available in Desktop Icon Toy so that all shortcuts are clean and good looking. The action can be turned on or off with immediate effect. More than this, you can disable icon tooltips and text background if you are too familiar with them.
Icon locking actions can be enforced to the effect that the element cannot be moved from the initial location. This can be executed in two ways. Either fixed locking can be applied (the element is pinned to the desktop and cannot be moved) or unfixed locking (the element can be dragged but as soon as you drop it it'll slide to the initial position).
Moving to the Options area you will find all the alternatives in the tray icon context menu, but you can tweak some of them a bit. The starting position for the layout has several options (top-left/right, bottom left/right, center, original and random all those enumerated). The color of the drop text is also changeable and the palette will provide you with sufficient alternatives in this sense.
When enabling icon hiding the program applies the default timing for the action to take place. In the Options menu the user can define it to a suitable value by simply dragging a slider from the 0 seconds minimum limit to a full minute.
For toggling between the different layouts made available and the aligning options you can use keyboard shortcuts. These are changeable for them to be as comfortable as you want. The pitfall is that you have no possibility of settings keyboard shortcuts for any other action.
Just like the name suggests, it is a toy, a $19.95 toy, to be exact. There isn't too much functionality infused in it but it is a great partner for killing those dead hours at the office. It is not 100% ready as Options menu still has some greyed out choices (icon size, not all hover effects are active, icon text cannot be hidden) in Vista environment. Try it on XP and all the greyed out areas will be gone.
The Good
It is a good companion for office pastime. Desktop Icon Toy is easily handled and set up and offers different icon layouts that are dynamically formed.
The greatest feature is that it allows you to revert to the initial state of the icon, so you will not lose your order once playtime expires. The hands of the clock are moving immediately after computer clock changes.
The Bad
The application is incomplete as it still has greyed out areas. When applying clock layout and enabling drag and drop animation, strange things happen to the icon.
There are very few layouts available. The user cannot preserve multiple layouts. Making it Vista compatible would definitely increase the value.
The Truth
There is little to do for $19.95. As it is a toy, it should be able to provide enough options for keeping you addicted for at least a couple of hours. Of course, to increase the fun you can make a multiple icon selection and throw them across the desktop. But this won't solve the problem.
Regarding functionality, I think some users will appreciate icon hiding options when mouse is not on desktop or in icon area. That is really something you could use as well as the shortcut overlay option.
The application is crippled in Vista because not all the options are fully functional. In XP you have access to all the functions.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
