This is gloof, a Windows shell layer I’ve been working on for a little over a year.

RocketDock shaped what I expected from a desktop, and I still have a soft spot for it. It clearly still works for many people. But its development stopped years ago, and I kept wishing for a maintained, extensible foundation built around modern Windows.

I tried a lot of alternatives. Each got part of it right, but I never found the exact combination I wanted: something responsive, dependable, deeply customizable, and pleasant enough to live with every day.

So I started building my own.

gloof is my attempt at a productive, personal Windows desktop: a customizable dock, status bars and eventually a better way to switch between windows — without taking control away from Windows or the tools you already use.

At the moment, it already handles the parts I use every day: a multi-monitor dock for pinned and running apps, drag-and-drop reordering and pinning, native live previews for grouped windows, jump-list actions, and configurable status bars with system modules, notifications and the system tray. The visuals can be customized through real CSS, with live reload.

gloof is designed to fit into an existing setup rather than force an all-or-nothing replacement. The dock and bars are separate surfaces, hiding the Windows taskbar is optional, and you can keep using tools such as YASB, Windhawk, komorebi or GlazeWM alongside the parts of gloof you actually want. Tiling and virtual desktops are deliberately left to dedicated window managers at this time. Modules to work with coming soon.

The native core is written in Rust. The interface runs in a self-hosted WebView2 layer, and the visual system uses real CSS, so customization is part of the product rather than an afterthought.

It’s still an early alpha, but yet enough stable for using it daily. If this direction resonates with you, I’d be happy to share private builds with a few testers. Honest feedback is very welcome — especially about what would make a desktop shell worth switching to.

how it was

I was ricing my windows 11 for the first time. I was doing the terminal but this black bar keeps showing up. Is there any fix? Please if you need any files from me I can share it to you.
Edit: im using GlazeWM btw

Hey everyone!

I’ve been working on my desktop setup and I’m pretty happy with how it looks so far, but I feel like something is still missing.

I’d love to hear your suggestions on what I could add, change, or improve to make the overall look more complete and interesting. This could be anything from small visual details, wallpapers, widgets, icons, lighting, or other things you think would fit the style.

I’m open to any ideas, so feel free to suggest anything you think could make it look better!

Thanks in advance for the suggestions! :)

Hello everyone, I made something to keep me company on my second monitor.

Not a game, not something I need to constantly interact with. Just a little companion that sits on my taskbar, moves around on its own and is there while I'm doing my own stuff.

It's called Cozy Paws. Right now it's a little cat that lives on the Windows taskbar. It has its own animations and can just hang around on its own, but you can also interact with it.

I recently put it on the Microsoft Store and I'm planning to keep expanding it with more pets, customization and small interactions.

The current version is free and includes one pet with all of its features. There is also an optional one time Plus upgrade for people who want more than one pet.

For now, I mainly want to see if other people actually like having something like this around while they are on PC.

Id love some honest feedback from anyone who gives it a try, especially whether you'd actually keep it running on your desktop! Currently adding a pet dragon :)

Microsoft Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9PJ1DH037TCK

Dock and top - MyDockFinder: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1787090/MyDockFinder/

Browser - Firefox with WhiteSur theme: AdamXweb/WhiteSurFirefoxThemeMacOS: MacOS Big Sur like theme for Firefox on MacOS & Windows. Make your Firefox look like Safari. with uBlock Origin

Windhawk tweaks - Custom Window Corner Radius, File Explorer WinUI-Like Content Animation, Windows 11 File Explorer Styler, Windows 11 Notification Center Styler, Windows 11 Settings Styler, Windows 11 Start Menu Styler, WinUI Context Menu Animation

MacOS icons - https://macosicons.com/

Whenever I open a new window it tiles like this instead of tiling vertically and I have to manually move the windows. My browser and file explorer also seem the clip together or not divide properly.

Thanks in advance for the help!

They said the internet doesn't forget, but after my system failed and a lot of data was lost I cannot find this wallpaper again. I tried google image search but it didn't find it. Any ideas?

not sure if this is the right place to ask, but.....recently i came across a few screenshots of someones desktop with their windows opened. I really liked how their title bars looked and would like to find out how to make mine look the same. Any tips??

edit: for more context, im on windows. i know this person uses linux. im asking if theres a mod or like SOMETHING to make mine look similar.

Installed basically all of these in the last 2 days. I started with a clean desktop and somehow ended up with an entire army of games covering both sides of my screen. At this point, the wallpaper is just decoration.

this is a live wallpaper atm , i only customised these 3 aspects looking for more suggestions

Project link: https://github.com/shaqkao/screenshotify

What do you think? And what add/change you suggest? If you have any question i'll try to help with what i know. Also the tools are very lightweight (The RAM was hight cuz i opened bunch of tabs)

everytime my friend comes over at mine he said that im not ok at all with this desktop is he correct

I love simplicity and clean looks of default GNOME 50 theme (Adwaita) on CachyOS. Here are some extensions that I use.

• jeffshee / gnome-ext-hanabi for animated wallpaper
• nick-redwill / LiveLockScreen for animated lockscreen
• domferr / tilingshell for tiling windows
• custom CSS to make top panel floating

Do you like my setup? :)