|
Welcome to Virtual Dimension: a free, fast, and feature-full virtual desktop manager for Windows platform. The main goal of this open-source project is indeed to enhance the Microsoft "Window Manager" up to the level of usual Unix Window Manager, by providing virtual desktops, as well as some additional features, like always on top, window shading...
So, first of all, what is a virtual desktop? Simply said, a "desktop" is what you see when you run windows: the actual windows desktop, with the icons on it; some open windows; some minimized windows. The main goal of the project is thus to allow working with only some of the applications visible at a time. Later, some other windows may be visible. The program thus allows to have a few set of applications/windows, where you can simply choose which group is visible, and switch between one group or the other.
Now, one may ask what is the interest of such a thing ? Well, this is quite simple. If you only have a few windows open at any time, I guess there isn't much interest. However, if you are working with lots of applications, you desktop can easily become overcrowded: you lose time finding your windows, taskbar buttons are too small for you to read the text and find the right window, using drag and drop becomes a nightmare... The solution is Virtual Dimension.
Indeed, using Virtual Dimension, you could have all your chat and irc windows on one virtual desktop; your email client and browser windows on another; and your text editor and debugger on a third one. This way, you only have what you need before you, yet you can easily switch to another desktop when you need to access the other applications...
Features
Add a new dimension to your Windows environment with multiple desktops:
Unlimited number of desktops
Optional preview window, allowing to select the desktop to switch to, and to access many of the functions
Tray icon, allowing easy access to most functions without taking much place on the desktop
Specific settings for each desktop (wallpaper, desktop background color, ...)
Ability to move a window from one desktop to the other, and to have a window be present on all desktops
Customizable shortcuts to use the application efficiently
Feeling lost with all your desktops ? Virtual Dimension has powerful features to help you:
Assign a meaningful name to each desktop, and select a different wallpaper for each desktop. Virtual Dimension supports BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF and EMF images, on all platforms, and with no speed loss (as opposed to Active Desktop)
Each desktop can be assigned a global hotkey. Switching to this specific desktop is now as simple a pushing a few keys
You can activate the next/previous desktop using customizable hotkeys
Optionally, you can have an OSD (On Screen Display) window appear whenever you switch desktop, displaying the name of the activated desktop. The OSD appearance can be fully configured.
At your choice, ALT+TAB can present the list of all windows, or only the windows that are present on the current desktop
It is also possible to configure the application so that moving the mouse to the edge of the screen automatically switches to the neighbooring desktop
The preview window is a powerful tool which allows you to get the most out of Virtual Dimension:
Preview window displays the list of windows on each desktop
Context menu allows to access special features for each window or desktop
You can use drag and drop to simply move a window from one desktop to the other
Switching desktop is as easy as a single mouse click
Appearance can be customized with custom colors or background image
Optionally transparent preview window (Windows 2000/XP only)
The window docks itself to the screen borders, and be hide itself automatically after some time, in order to take as little space as possible ! (note that it can hide only if docked)
|
Windows Software
Albina Merfyn - I find this to be really easy to use. I can...
