Introduction

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...

I guess those already used to working with any flavor of Unix and X11 have already understood the interest of such a project. In my opinion, anybody who used it for more than a couple of minutes may find it hard to revert to a single desktop. However, some people, most probably Windows users, may not understand what this is.

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...

top

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)

Additionally, Virtual Dimension allows you to access special features:

You can make any window be "always on top"
All windows can be made partially translucent
You now have the possibility to minimize any window to the tray
You can maximize the width or height of a window, with a single click or customizable keystroke
To work even faster, you can move a window to another desktop with only a keystroke of your choice
Virtual Dimension also allows you to easily kill any window

In order to access all those features in a more convenient fashion, and thus work faster, Virtual Dimension can optionally integrate with the shell. This allows to access many operations with a single click, as if they were supported directly by Windows !

The system menu gets a new "Virtual Dimension" submenu, allowing to switch desktop, make a window transparent or always on top...
If a window is setup to be minimized to tray, clicking on the minimize button will put it to the tray. You do not need to go through Virtual Dimension for this to happen !
Shift+Maximize (using the button or menu item) will maximize the width of the window
Ctrl+Maximize (using the button or menu item) will maximize the height of the window
Shift+Close (using the button or menu item) will kill the window

Virtual Dimension allows you to change many settings on your applications. Maybe you like this transparent shell. Or you want your email client to be always visible, whatever desktop you are on. To make your life easier, Virtual Dimension allows you to:

Save the settings you use for each kind of window
Automatically restore saved settings when the window appears, or when Virtual Dimension starts
Optionally, save/restore the size/position of your windows
Optionally, automatically save the settings as you use them (though this feature does not always work very well...)

top

Screenshots

Click here for full size
Virtual Dimension in action ! Where you can see:

The OSD window in the top left corner (displaying the "Desk 0" message
Various levels of transparency on the Putty and MSys windows
The preview window, in the top right corner, showing the applications present on the 4 desktops
Outlook Express, present on all desktop and minimized to tray

top

Requirements

The aim is to have the program be as portable and compatible as possible. However, some functionalities may not be available on all platform. Provided you got a decently recent version of Internet Explorer, it should work just fine.

The application is expected to run on Windows 98/Me as well as NT/2000/XP. It may also work just fine on Windows 95. Note however that transparency is only supported on Windows 2000/XP

If you test the application, please let me know if it does not work on your platform, including a somewhat detailed description of what happens.

top

License

Virtual Dimension comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. See the GNU General Public License for details.

The virtual dimension logo was kindly contributed by agr3kko, based on a GPL icon from the Redhat theme "Bluecurve", by Garrett LeSage.

top

Download

Virtual Dimension is an open source project, distributed under the GNU Public License terms. See details of the GPL to find out your rights. You are greatly encourage to distribute the application

The project is hosted on SourceForge, thus allowing the source to be accessed through CVS. See this page for details

Latest version is 0.94, released July 9, 2005. Download it here.
You can also download previous binary versions at this location

Installation is quite straightforward: just decompress the archive to the desired installation location. That's it, Virtual Dimension is ready to run: just run the exe file !