Otaku Software Presents: TopDesk 1.4
Scott Rippee @ 6:23 pm February 2nd, 2006I was just told about an app, TopDesk 1.4, by el bucho and thought I would throw a post out there because it makes my brain happy. Otaku:
Find windows, fast. TopDesk is a quick and easy way to switch between applications. With a single key press, you can instantly view thumbnails of all open windows, display thumbnails of windows belonging to the current application, or hide all windows to quickly access the desktop.
Here is a screenshot of all of my open windows tiled awaiting my choice:
It basically lets you stylishly and dynamically tile all of your running windows in a number of usefull ways, allowing for quick glances of windows running behind other windows and quick switches. Perhaps the most usefull feature is being able to set up corners of the screen to cary out actions when the mouse is dragged into them. I did however run into one problem where it wouldn’t bring the window I clicked on to the forground, instead it brought the last raised window up. I’m not so sure this was a problem with TopDesk thou.
I had visions of an application like this many years ago that would work on Linux with Fluxbox. My vision was one that allowed you to hit a trigger key that would tile all of your running workspaces. Then when you selected a workspace it would then present you with all of the applications running in that workspace tiled and awaiting your choice. Expanding on this a little more there could be workspaces within workspaces and the user could visually organize and move through them in a way that is meaningful to them.
I will be checking into getting a copy of the beta to check out some new features that a developer mentioned on OhGizmo!:
- David, I’m from Otaku Software, the developers of TopDesk. Thanks for mentioning us
.If you’d like to drop me a line via my email address I’d be happy to send you a beta of the next version of TopDesk - it includes a new way to switch windows that’s not a feature of any OS that’s out *yet* (hint, hint
).Comment by James Stewart — 2/1/2006 @
Check out OhGizmo!’s article featuring TopDesk 1.4.
In my rather inelegant opinion, the most fascinating feature of Mac OSX, is “Expose”. For those (very unfortunate) of you who’ve never seen Expose, it’s this feature that lets you tile, at the press of a button, all the windows you’re using so that you can quickly jump to the one you need. It’s very appealing, visually, and also happens to help, productivity-wise.
4 Responses to “Otaku Software Presents: TopDesk 1.4”
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bucho Says:
February 3rd, 2006 at 10:21 amBeware of this program. On Scott’s system it looked awesome, but I have found several problems with my installs.
I first tried it out on one of my Windows XP Professional systems at my house. The thing didn’t work at all. It installed and started running in my tray, but nothing worked. Not even right-clicking on the icon in tray would do anything. I reinstalled it and the same thing happened. There was some sort of incompatability, but I don’t know what.
Second try was on my Windows XP Professional system at work running Windows Blinds. It worked but over time more and more bugs started appearing.
For one, tiling the windows then selecting a program to bring it to the front doesn’t always mean the focus is on that window. For example, I had nine windows running and I tried to switch over to my Outlook. After selecting the Outlook window I attempted to read an email. Upon clicking on an email I was redirected to Visio.
Another annoyance is when I tiled the windows and then clicked on the Start menu (unneccessary, but I was testing TopDesk) now it doesnt work correctly. I get a strange outline of the Start menu every other time I click it. So it takes at least twice as long to get anywhere in my Start menu. This also occurs for any drop down menu in any program.
The third problem I have encountered is in text editors and in Firefox text blocks. The arrow keys no longer function to edit text. Also several puncuation keys do not work anymore (such as apostrophes). Copying and pasting rarely works. The list goes on.
Anyway, try before you buy. See if this program works on your system before you shell out the ten bucks.
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Scott Rippee Says:
February 3rd, 2006 at 10:52 pm“The third problem I have encountered is in text editors and in Firefox text blocks. The arrow keys no longer function to edit text. Also several puncuation keys do not work anymore (such as apostrophes). Copying and pasting rarely works. The list goes on.”
I am seeing some of these problems also, today. haha
I was too lazy to see if rebooting fixed it for a while,but I will probalby have to uninstall and wait for the next version to see how that works. It seems strange that this software can effect all of this other stuff.. -
James Stewart Says:
February 4th, 2006 at 12:02 ambucho: Sounds like the first system you tried it on had a very low-end video card. What kind of card does it have?
Scott, bucho:
As for the issues you’re seeing, we haven’t seen them in the past, and nothing like it has ever been reported. I’d really like to get to the bottom of the problem, so would you mind contacting Otaku Support (http://www.otakusoftware.com/support)?
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bucho Says:
February 4th, 2006 at 12:44 amJames -
My first system uses onboard video which completely blows! It won’t run much of anything. I use it as a web browser and a server only. So, that would explain the problems that I experienced on that machine. That didn’t even occur to me. :)