The Regular Virtual Desktop Effect (was Re: The Cube Efffect)

[Jon Pruente]

On Jan 26, 2008 9:05 AM, Brendan G <moldybeats at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think 2 or 3 desktops makes sense in certain situations.  Say you're
> running something that really 'wants' all the available screen space
> (like Photoshop)... or, on the other side, if you have 10 instances of
> BitTorrent going on, it's nice to give them their own desktop.
>
> But generally, I don't think they really enhance productivity.  I
> always disable them, personally.

It's much easier to keep programs of various sorts grouped in to
viewable segments than having to manually minimize and maximize
windows as you work, or just leaving a ton of windows open and cycling
though them.  In one VD you can have your music player open with the
library available to navigate and in another VD you can have a full
screen web browser open and in yet another you can have your word
processor open where you are writing a report for college (or where
ever) and that's three VDs in use and organized with no window
swapping.  each screen can stay just how you like it and no matter how
much work and other programs you run on another VD your music player
and browser are right where you left them, and uncluttered.  With a
simple keycombo I can switch between VDs faster than cycling though a
bunch of windows to find the one I want because I know what the last
active window in each VD should be.  Once you pick up on separating
your workflows by VDs you will increase productivity because you
aren't interfering with one project with the windows of another.

Jon.