I used to build lots of .swf’s embedded in html pages and set the html page as my desktop as oppossed to just having an image set as my desktop. This was cool because the swf would read from an xml file and add links that I can access directly from my desktop. I also had various effects and what not as well as news aggregators, clocks and an mp3 player. The only problem that I couldn’t seem to solve is that when I would try to make a selection on my desktop focus was on the .swf and not the desktop. So this was a problem.

My solution was to do the same exact thing but in AJAX rather than flash this way focus would remain on the desktop. Below is a link to the working sample as well as a link to the source files for you to use as you wish. Simply add all of your favorite images in the images folder and then modify the ajax-desktop.js file and add your images as indexes of the ‘imagesArray’. Everytime you boot up you will have a different image load randomly as your desktop. You can add links to your executables allowing you to rid yourself of desktop icons as well as links to your favorite sites.

Sample:
ajax-desktop.html

Download Source code:
ajax-desktop.zip