Review: Desktop Manager
Faster computers and an always-on Internet have turned us all into hyper-multitaskers. I have over a dozen windows open on my Mac at any given time and that doesn’t even include multiple tabs in applications like Adium and Firefox. While Expose does relieve some of the stress of a cluttered desktop, the most powerful method for getting organized—one that *nix users have taken for granted for years—is having multiple desktops. Desktop Manager is a free (beer, freedom) virtual desktop manager for OS X that provides you with as many desktops as your computer’s memory can handle and your own brain can keep track of.
Virtual desktops have been part of Unix-ey desktops for a long time. The idea is that instead of having one crowded desktop with many windows competing for space, you can have many of them- for example, one for work documents, one for development, one for web related stuff and so on. How you choose categorize your windows is up to you, but the key idea is that at any moment in time your screen space is being utilized by only the windows you are interested in. Richard Wareham’s Desktop Manager brings this functionality to OS X.
Of course, all of this would be of no importance if the application was not easy to use. Thankfully, the Desktop Manager- while not free from quirks- is as easy to use as one would expect of a Mac application and quite powerful once you get a hang of it.
When Desktop Manager is running, a pager will appear on the top of your screen to help you easily select the desktop of your choice. It will also show you the current positions of open windows on each desktop.
You can provide each desktop with a unique name that could appear in the lower right corner to help orient yourself. Similar to Expose, Desktop Manager has a notion of “hot corners” and “hot edges” so that if you pull your mouse pointer to a corner it can bring up a larger pager to select a desktop of your choice. You can also have it set up so that it switches to the next desktop if you pull your mouse pointer off the edge of the screen. So switching from your “Work” desktop to your “Web” desktop would be as easy as moving your mouse pointer off the right edge of the screen to create the effect of having multiple desktops seamlessly laid side-by-side. The application also has many key shortcuts to switch between and configure your desktops.
At any point, you can also move any open window to a desktop of your choice. It also supports “sticky windows”, whereby you can select a window that should be open on every desktop, but this feature is not easy to use. It is an important feature, since things like chat windows should be available on every desktop, and hopefully the ease of use will improve in future versions. Also, it is currently not possible to drag windows between desktops but the developer is considering it for a future version.
The application also has some snazzy eye-candy, that I choose not to use on a daily basis, but may impress some. You can choose from many cool effects to transition between desktops and the Desktop Manager also supports skins, which I have not used yet. You can check out screenshots and movies of these effects at the Desktop Manager site. These are interesting- and do help differentiate it as an OS X app- but when I want to switch to another desktop, I want to do so now. I do like how, if configured correctly, the application moves out of the way and acts like it was built in to the operating system.
A few of smaller gripes I have with the application is that it does not have full support for X applications and behavior for for systems with multipe monitors (notebook + monitor) is slightly strange, but these issues should not concern most users. Also, some of the default key combinations conflict with Spotlight, but you can change those to ones you are comfortable with.
In general, though, the Desktop Manager is a fantastic application that makes life a lot simpler if you have a small screen, are a heavy multitasker or like to be terribly organized- and most computer users fall in to one of these three categories. Add this one to your growing list of small Mac-only applications that do one thing and do it well.
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Comments
I’m not sure what the purpose of this review is. It seems to be introducing us to a program that hasn’t been updated in over a year and is no longer being developed. This is especially odd since it makes no mention of two competing products that have recently been updated. VirtueDesktops is a free alternative based on Desktop Manger code and updated within the last few weeks. You Desktop is a commerical desktop manager that has just entered a beta cycle for a Universal Binary version. It would seem this review would more appropriate for your “This Day in History” column.
@tutru, the fact that it has not been updated does not make it any less useful. Just look around your Applications folder and you will find many other useful software that you use that are a lot older than a year. The point is that many people may not be aware of products like this in the first place; and in case they are interested, Desktop Manager is a well developed, free version.
I am aware of the competing products and thank you for bringing them to the readers’ attention. I look forward to reviewing them for our readers in the future as well.
I agree with tutru. This is arguably tantamount to undertaking a review of Firefox .07
Since the Virtue project has taken over the development of DM’s codebase, and in addition to making regular releases, has even managed to make universal, it would have been a better choice for review.
Alas, it’s up to you what you review, of course. But no mention of Virtue at all seems like a misstep or lack of research given the circumstances. Virtue is not a competing product…it is the product. Just developed.
Yep, Desktop Manager is history; VirtueDesktops is the future.
I recently switched from CodeTek VirtualDesktop Pro to VirtueDesktops because VDP’s future is uncertain given that CodeTek hasn’t made any mention of a UB version. I still prefer VDP but the transition to VD (horrible acronym) hasn’t been as awkward as I anticipated.
One wish for VD is that development would focus more on core functionality and less on “eye candy” features. It’s a workflow productivity enhancer for me, not a toy. VDP is more “professional” that way, but considering it’s a relatively pricey commercial product it’s reasonable to expect more from it than a free open source project.
Btw, anyone else think it would be more accurate for this app category to be Virtual Screen Managers (or ... Display ...) instead of Virtual Desktop Managers on OS X since none of them currently changes the underlying Desktop? A lot of people would like that capability but it’s non-trivial (IMO) to implement reliably.
Thanks for the review, Devanshu. I’m always curious to learn how people are using these different V?M products.
But no mention of Virtue at all seems like a misstep or lack of research given the circumstances.
I’m particularly amused by your comment because that’s exactly how I felt about a recent Carbon Copy Cloner review making no mention of SuperDuper!.
When certain products are reviewed and fail to mention alternatives it seems a disservice to readers who may not otherwise be aware of the choices. Sure, reviewers can’t be on top of everything but they needn’t get defensive when someone politely offers additional information and opinions about related products as followup (e.g. in blog comments). If I were writing reviews I’d openly welcome that kind of feedback, for everyone’s benefit.
@sjk, I don’t see where I got defensive (if in fact you were referring to me). In fact, if you read my comment above I said: I am aware of the competing products and thank you for bringing them to the readers’ attention. I look forward to reviewing them for our readers in the future as well.
This is sincerely how I feel; I appreciate all the comments here and believe that the comments for each article are part of the experience of reading the article. If someone reads my review and feels the information is inadequate, the only need to scroll a bit further down to gain from all of your comments. So thanks and keep them coming.
Good review, Devanshu. I have been a long time user of DM adn had found as it existed had all the functionality I needed so had never wondered why it hadn’t been updated.
I had previously checked VirtueDesktops and it used to be inferior, but I’ll have to give it another quiz
sjk - I actually make a point of not mentioning competitive products in reviews (although I do occasionally). The reason is once you mention one, then you should mention all. So then the review turns into a comparison of competing products instead of a review of the product in question.
I then rely on readers like yourself (who got me to give SD! a proper look and it’s nearly replaced B3 for me) to alert AM readers to other worthy products.
PS On DM - strangely, I actually find it most useful when I’ve got two monitors.
I don’t see where I got defensive (if in fact you were referring to me).
Not at all, Devanshu, nor anyone else here (including you, Chris
) Btw, I’d missed your earlier “I am aware of the competing products” comment when making mine; sorry.
I actually make a point of not mentioning competitive products in reviews (although I do occasionally). The reason is once you mention one, then you should mention all.
Understood. Thanks for clarifying that and other things. Guess I’m more of a “see also” kind of guy even when it might be better to stay myopically focuses on one thing at a time.
On DM - strangely, I actually find it most useful when I’ve got two monitors.
I’m stuck with three—each on a different system.
With VDP’s pager visible, there was more of an illusion of having a larger monitor than I get using VD without that pager. Pager or not, it’s especially crippling not using a V?M app @ 1024x768 resolution on this iBook. It’s easier to go without one my 20” iMac (as I temporarily do for reasons not worth explanation here) ... until it’s launched again and I quickly realize what I was missing.
Run this program, or VirtueDesktops, and also Parallels. Then you have a computer that runs several OSes full screen at a time, and you can switch between them with just a keyboard combination!
wackybit - yeah! I used to do that at work with Terminal Services. Was pretty cool - especially when you do a cube transition from one desktop to the next. That really blows people away.
Devanshu, I agree with sjk, you should have mentioned Virtue because it’s basically the new DM. However, DM I would like to point out that DM is not dead.
The girlfriend of DM’s programmer, Rich, is going to make DM a Universal Binary.
http://filecoreinuse.livejournal.com/102653.html
DM may not be dead but there doesn’t seem to be a clear commitment to future development when compared to what Tony Arnold is doing with VirtueD.
In old NuBus times, several graphics cards had an extended desktop. Their driver told the OS the screen would be, say 2048*768 instead of the 1024*768 pixels the monitor would show.
When you moved the mouse near the left or right edge of the shown 1024 pixel wide “window”, the underlying 2048 pixel wide desktop would scroll smoothly… Scrolling was performed by the graphics hardware - the running applications never knew that the real screen was smaller than the virtual screen. The BIG advantage over todays desktop managers: It also works with applications which do not cooperate or (for developers) are just being debugged.
If that was possible 10 years ago with 4MB graphics cards, why can’t todays 256MB graphics cards do the same?