RK Launcher

I found a really neat tool the other day when checking out the desktop modding guide over at Lowyat.net's forum. It's called RK Launcher.

What does it do? Well it shows a very nice looking docking bar at the side of your screen that can be used to hold shortcuts. The good thing about it is that it's fully customisable. It's still in beta and it's already impressive. You can change it's location, the opacity, the size of the bar, the animation smoothness, and the icons. Just drag-and-drop the shortcuts. I'm in the midst of cleaning up my desktop and relocating everything on the bar (and hiding the standing Windows taskbar while I'm at it).

It gets better. You don't need to install it at all. Just drop it anywhere and maybe add a shortcut to the start menu so it starts up automatically. And even better, you can have multiple copies of the program and have two different docks containing different shortcuts!

While searching for more icon sets (very few by default), I found this post, which already manages to explain things I wanted to talk about, and with screenshots to boot, plus providing some links to icons.

Also, RK Launcher can be used to contain docklets as well, as mentioned in the above link. Do a google on Y'z Toolbar and ObjectDock. The docklets (mini-programs) for these applications can be attached to RK Launcher without much problems.