That does help; thank you! Perhaps some feedback from me on what you posted would help further illuminate what I'm looking for.
The bars provided by the first one are neat, but still feel like they are placed on top of a wallpaper, instead of being integrated into the desktop design itself.
The second, "The Thinking Tree" was probably my favorite. Things about it that I liked:
1. It doesn't resemble anything "traditional" i.e. no bars at the bottom / top, no start menu in the lower left corner, etc.
2. The links appear to be a part of the background itself, giving it that look I'm looking for.
This is close to what I'm imagining. One thing that would make it even closer to what I'm looking for would be if clicking on a link to a menu would actually cause the background itself to morph / animate in some way to reveal the new menu.
I like that one!
The third looks nice too, but it isn't designed around the idea of some kind of art or graphic being manipulated to reveal menus / links. It's not really what I was looking for.
The fourth was beautiful! It probably took second place to the Thinking Tree for me. It definately has that integrated feel that I was speaking of; the author also took the time to make it fairly easy to configure, which is nice (but not necessary).
The fifth one also works hard to achieve something like I was describing; but it also isn't oriented around a piece of art or graphic art, and so not really what I was looking for.
The sixth one's graphics don't appeal to me.
The thing that prevents the proliferation of DX desktops (and ObjectBars) is that they are pre-configured and it takes the end-user more time than they want to spend to get it just right.
If I find something I like, this hopefully won't be a problem. I would be willing to spend whatever time is necessary to make it "just right."
Your post has been helpful-- thank you. I also want to point out that I do not mean to denigrate any of the author's hard work put into the themes above. All of them look like serious effort was put into them, and while some of them may not appeal to me, I'm sure they appeal to others. Great work!
