Quick Links

The Quick Links desklet allows you to create beautiful themed desktop shortcuts for your most used folders or custom commands. The image above showcases a variety of styles this desklet can create.

What was it designed for?

This desklet was designed to help clean up desktops with lots of icons and improve visuals. Example use cases:

• Dual-monitor / multiple-monitor setups: Desklets have a significant advantage over desktop launchers... they don't move when you switch on your other monitor or reboot. I wanted to organize my desktop, but I couldn't stop my icons from rearranging. This desklet is the solution.

• Auto-arrange: Do you like the auto-arrange setting, but wish there was a way to not auto-arrange certain important icons? That's the perfect scenario for this desklet.

• All icons are the same: Would you like to change the look of only some icons, but not the rest? Make some apps stand out or the opposite. This app will allow you to do that.

• Organization: You can group your links by creating multiple instances of this desklet and splitting your icons accordingly. For example, create an instance and change the label to "Projects", then configure the desklet with the links you need. Suddenly you'll have all your project-related stuff nicely grouped together.

Customization

You can customize this desklet to your taste. Choose from two layouts a list or tiles; change fonts, and icons or remove them entirely. You can use transparency or have solid colors, perhaps make the buttons large or compact. Check out the different options.

Tips

• You can add multiple desklets by clicking the "+" icons in your desklet manager.
• You can backup your desklets by going to the settings. There you should find an icon in the top right corner. Select the Export to a file option or import to load your backup.
• You can add a transparent border to your link to make them look bigger.
• When you disable desklet decorations you can still grab the desklet by the invisible border around it.

What can be improved?

• Improve font parsing.

• Unfortunately, the xlet settings API at this moment doesn't support iconfilechooser within list setting, so icons have to be typed in by name, which is somewhat annoying.

Remarks

@schorschii thank You for your notes@schorschii desklet. I've used it as a template for this desklet (I also use it on my PC). Also, thanks to the other desklet authors I've used some of your code as a reference.