ObjectBar

Before I proceed to blab on about what I think of ObjectBar, I think that I should make one thing clear - it’s definitely not the easiest thing to use. In truth, ObjectBar actually took me a heck of a lot longer to learn how to maneuver effectively in comparison to other customization software, such as WindowBlinds and ObjectDock. ObjectBar is actually free has a shareware version which is ad-supported and expires after 30 days, but the full version comes as part of the Stardock Object Desktop 2008 suite.

I personally don’t find any use for ObjectBar asides from Mac OS X Finder emulation for Vista. With that said, it’s an interesting piece of software to work with - if anyone ever does get the chance to conceive their own way to navigate around Windows like Cairo Shell aims to do, then it could be with ObjectBar.

Installing & Tweaking New Bars

You’re really not left with much in the beginning, so it’s almost inevitable you’re going to have to download & install new bars. I was surprised to see that Wincustomize, Stardock’s resident gallery for hosting, seemed to only support ObjectBar2, those bars actually are compatible with ObjectBar. Alas, I was still galled at the lack of bars being hosted there, so I searched around for more. And more I got.

Turns out DeviantArt’s got a pretty swell collection of ObjectBar bars - as well as Googling around got me what I really wanted; the Mac Finder. After installing OB Font and Lucida Grande font types into my computer, I found that the experience was beautiful. I was getting Mac OS X emulation on Windows Vista - something that I had thought previously near impossible.

Tweaking bars isn’t too difficult - most of your work will be done within the Theme Editor segment of ObjectBar. However, if you want to change the font, you’re going to have to open the included .obskin file with Notepad and manually tweak it yourself - a task that’s not too hard, to be honest. That said, finding out how to tweak it to my liking took my morning (I guess I just wasn’t feeling the vibe).

Performance

ObjectBar’s performance doesn’t really bug the RAM or the processor, contrary to belief. I ran ObjectBar easily with my pretty standard Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM. No performance damage (took 2.7MB of RAM, for the record). It does what it’s supposed to - offer an alternative to the Start Menu - pretty easily, although it wasn’t an easy feat accessing my programs without the Start Menu, without the use of Launchy (thank goodness for Launchy).

Any bugs that I had issues with were mainly because of the way the Finder works as well as errors/bugs on the user’s part, where ObjectBar or Stardock really doesn’t have control over because they didn’t host the bars. So, I guess I can’t blame them there (but just know there are bugs).

Conclusion

Overall, I guess I was pretty impressed with ObjectBar - it took 2.7MB of RAM, it provided a viable alternative to the typical boring Start menu, and it’s free! If you’re on Vista and bored with your Start Menu, pick it up now. And if you need help with it, feel free to leave a comment.