Problem with "Behavior of windows on other desktops"

[Will]

First let me say, I love Dexpot 1.6. It's really excellent, and just the program I've been looking for.

I do have one very annoying problem with it though:

On the "Plugins and Extras" tab, the setting for "When activating a window on another desktop" is not honored. No matter what I set it to, the action taken seems to be "Switch to the respective desktop". Is there any way to fix this?

What I want is when I click on an active application in the task bar, it should come to the desktop I'm on, restoring from a minimized state if necessary. This is what I think "Move Window to current desktop" should do, but it doesn't work.

Running Win7x64, with the 1.6 beta just downloaded today.

Thanks very much for your help!

[Patrick]

When the "Keep all taskbar buttons visible" option is enabled, activating a window that's not on the current desktop triggers a desktop switch. It's supposed to work this way.

What I want is when I click on an active application in the task bar, it should come to the desktop I'm on, restoring from a minimized state if necessary.

Wouldn't that be like not using virtual desktops at all?

[Will]

Hmm...

Thanks for the reply Patrick and for explaining the relationship between those two options.

If "Keep all taskbar buttons visible" is NOT turned on, I'm not sure what the value of the "Behavior of Windows on other desktops" feature is, since I have no way to activate those windows in the absence of the taskbar buttons. Perhaps by activate you were talking about the applications activating themselves with a message box or something? If that's what you mean then I guess the "behavior" options would allow me to affect how that operates. But its intuitive meaning for me was to affect the behavior when I clicked on a taskbar item.

But in answer to your questions, no, I don't agree with your characterization at all, that it would be like not using virtual desktops at all. I think it better integrates it.

I use virtual desktops because I need more space. I keep the applications on different desktops either to group them by function, or what I'm working on, or just out of a question of space. Same as most of us, I imagine. But I don't want to pretend I have two computers, and that I can't get at the apps on one screen from the other screen.

When I want to return my attention to a window on another desktop, I want the option of either me going to it, or bringing it to me. I could go to another desktop and interact with it there, but I might instead want to bring it to the desktop where I currently am, because it's now relevant to the work I'm doing on THIS desktop. Other VDMs that I have used in the past (that don't work on Win7x64) allowed me this flexibility.

By clicking the taskbar icon for the window, that gives me an easy way to bring it where I am. If I want to go where it is, that's easy too: I just switch desktops using the "Taskbar Pager."

But it sounds like, based on the functionality you've explained, that to this newcomer the procedure for bringing the application to me would be a bit "involved" in Dexpot. I'd have to switch desktops and manually drag the window back. Or guess which mini-icon it is in the taskbar pager. Or go to the other desktop to find the app, then open the right-click or control menu, then open the Dexpot menu, then open the move menu, and then select the desktop.

My way is easier, at least for me.

You obviously recognize that different people have different ways of working that make sense for them, and thus put a lot of effort into making different ways to do the same thing in Dexpot already.

So I guess please then consider this a feature request, to make an option for clicking a taskbar-icon either move the app, or move the user. I shouldn't think it would be a big job, since the mechanism the function would need has already been put in Dexpot. It's just a question of triggering it. If this is possible please let me know and I'll keep coming back to look for it.

But Dexpot is a terrific program. Aside from that one thing it has pretty much everything else.

Thanks!

[smacdav]

If "Keep all taskbar buttons visible" is NOT turned on, I'm not sure what the value of the "Behavior of Windows on other desktops" feature is, since I have no way to activate those windows in the absence of the taskbar buttons.

Suppose you have your default text editor open on desktop 4 and you are currently working on desktop 1. You double-click on a text file to open it. This activates the text editor on desktop 4 even though you are not currently on desktop 4.

I don't want to pretend I have two computers, and that I can't get at the apps on one screen from the other screen.

In Dexpot, you can always get at the apps on any screen by using the built-in task switcher (replacement for Windows Alt+Tab). I've messed with my settings, but I believe that by default, the shortcut is Windows+F3. This doesn't fix your problem if you want to be able to just click on things, but it does give you access to things on other desktops.

Personally, part of the real estate I'm trying to save with virtual desktops is taskbar space, so I see where Patrick is coming from in thinking your way is a lot like not using virtual desktops at all, but your explanation of how you use it makes sense and, more importantly, works for you.