Desktops is a very (too) powerful program

Further testing:

OK, and here's my final post (well, hopefully - ). Now after two days of using "Desktops" program (together with "Blackbox" shell replacement) I can say that I already got used to it and that I really love it ...


I mean, now I have not 4 but 8 desktops alltogether (i.e. 4 are from Desktops, and 4 are Blackbox's workspaces), and for instance I use the second Desktops's desktop to launch those few programs that have no windows, and are more or less running in the background (namely, CacheSentry, and Firefox Preloader, however, I am sure that I will think of more of them), but they do have tray-icons, so to reduce the clutter in Blackbox's "systembar" in my first/original desktop.


And also, I am convinced that I will found out even more advantages (in/of using Desktops in cooperation with Blackbox) when the time passes by!!


Ivan


Edited by ivan - 23 August 2008 at 7:59pm

Interesting way to adapt Desktops into your (atypical ) use of Windows, Ivan!  Thanks for sharing!

You see, the thing is that I use Blackbox program (or "Blackbox for Windows" in full) as my shell instead of the default Explorer, which besides other cool features, also offers more than one desktop/workspace ...


And when I launched Desktops (which is very very similar to BossKey program from KeirNet website, also see below) for the first time today, I needed to reboot my computer since I haven't found any way to get back to the first/original desktop (from four); namely, after I switched to the second desktop, the program (i.e. Desktops) launched an instance of Explorer, and that was all, meaning that there was no Blackbox's "systembar" (i.e. that's "taskbar" in Explorer), and its right-click menu didn't work/appear, hwile the Desktops's hotkeys just didn't work (again, to get back to the first desktop through them), while I also couldn't launch Task Manager since it was already running in the original desktop, and that was when I decided that I there's no other way but to reboot the computer.


However, since I am a geek (or at least consider myself as one) I did found out a way to use both programs (i.e Blackbox and Desktops) together. And the way I did it is the following: after I switched to the second Desktops's desktop I launched my "no_startup.bat" file (in that new instance of Explorer that Desktops launched) that I use to start Blackbox with "-nostartup" switch (which launches my shell without running the items from my Startup folder), and so the Blackbox's systembar appeared, and then I double-clicked on the "Desktops.exe" executable which somehow "detected" the previous running instance of it (and first/original desktop), and repeated this procedure for the two remaning desktops.


Oh and yes, here is also a related quote (i.e. a part of whole post) from the Cache and closing the Firefox with EndTask method thread on mozillaZine that I opened about loosing the Firefox's cache in certain circumstances; namely, it was a situation related to the mentioned BossKey program and its virtual destkops:

Originally posted by ivan Well, it was all BossKey program's fault. I must confess that I was somehow afraid to execute BossKey for the first time, because I suspected that it's a (too)powerful program; and indeed I was right, it "unfortunately" is. I wrote that the BossKey is a powerful program because it actually made windows and processes totally un-accessible, i.e. the Windows TaskManager showed empty list of tasks, and "Bring to Front" feature in the context menu of Process Explorer program from Sysinternals was greyed-out. You see, I use Blackbox for Windows program as my default shell, which also offers more than one desktop/workspace. So right after I launched BossKey for the first time, it switched to an empty virtual desktop without Blackbox tray and taskbar and exited (i.e., the "bosskey.exe" process exited), and nomather what I've tried nothing helped; for example setting all the hot-keys for all the virtual desktops in BossKey's GUI, and switching between them etc. So simply all the windows completely disappeared. Luckily I know various techniques how to get them back; for instance, I do that with Enabler program and its "Show" function for a certain control/window/class. Anyway, I got most my programs' windows back with the mentioned Enabler program, but I needed to exit Firefox with APT (Advanced Process Termination) program, since it offers the "EndTask" method for any process (and not just for tasks like TaskManager), which is AFAIK the most gentle way to exit a process beside the "WM_CLOSE" one.

P.S. - Now I only need to configure also my favorite Total Commander file-manager to be allowed to run in more than one instance (to be able to launch it in the remaning desktops), and then I could finally say that programs (again, Blackbox and Desktops) are working together in cooperation.


Ivan