How are you supposed to use extra desktops?

I don't see the difference between virtual desktops and combining taskbar buttons. Some may find it useful and more power to them, personally I just MS make it possible to unpin it from the taskbar to give me more room and get rid of an unwanted icon.

Hi

Well I was just messing with it, I opened 4 full screen applications, and using the Task View button I can switch between them almost instantly without closing or minimizing any of them.

The truth is that task view is one more step then just clicking on the icon on the task bar for the application you want to show on the screen. That's the way I've done it for years.

I just don't see what having them on different desktops would do, that is different then having multiple windows open.

I'll check out Youtube.

Mike

MikeHawthorne said:

The truth is that task view is one more step then just clicking on the icon on the task bar for the application you want to show on the screen.

That's the way I see it unless I'm completely missing something.

I look at it that it gives you the ability to group specific apps together for a certain task. For instance, you could have a desktop with the specific applications open and running that you would use to write a book. Maybe Word, a Thesaurus and browser open for research. Another desktop could have a different set of applications running that are required to do video editing or coding. You could switch between the desktops and have everything open and running for you to do a specific task. This would be much more useful if you could save the state of each virtual desktop so you could boot up with everything the way you want it.

Maybe that's why I'll never make use of it. Even when debugging, reading forums, checking emails and doing Photoshop work I manage it all on one desktop and I may have eight or nine windows open at once. I don't think I'll ever have enough windows open at the same time to warrant more than one active desktop.

Mystere said:

The power is not when you have multiple full screen windows. But when you have multiple windows open per screen.

Let's say you have 5 windows open on screen 1, and 6 windows open on screen 2, and 3 windows on screen 3. You can switch between them and they're all in the same positions as you left them. You don't have to minimize the other 8 windows to get to the same state.

Windows has no way to say "I just want to see these 5 windows". That's what virtual desktops are for.

Agreed.
It also means that you can group all of the open windows by the type of activity (I believe you pointed this out earlier).

For example I have "VituaWin + KvasdoPager" installed in W7.

When I was studying Networking I needed to have open:

• Multiple VMs
• Multiple help files (PDFs and Word documents)
• Browser
• Exercise instructions & exercise answer sheet (Word documents)

The VMs and browser were difficult to use unless they were full screen (thus requiring an several entire desktops).
The help files could be displayed on another desktop.
The instructions and answer sheet on yet another desktop.

However "VituaWin + KvasdoPager" works like Linux Distro multiple workspaces.
You are able to see little pictures representing the various programs on all of the virtual desktops.
You can also just Drag & Drop the little pictures to other desktops, without leaving the desktop you are currently using.

At TAFE, they didn't have virtual desktops and the monitors were 1280x1024 making it horribly difficult to complete exercises in a reasonable time.
At home, with my virtual desktop set up, it was much easier to complete the work.

Boozad said:

I don't see the difference between virtual desktops and combining taskbar buttons.

The W10TP implementation isn't as useful as it could be.
Based on the current version, I guess no one at MS uses or understands virtual desktops.

They are very useful when you have multiple windows of the same program open.
If you have a dozen Word docs open, they all look the same in the thumbnail preview and on the Taskbar (also the titles are truncated).
"Combined Icons" are horrible (just like the Mac OS X Launcher or Ubuntu Unity Bar) because you can't tell what is open or how many instance there are.

Strangely enough, my friend who uses Arch Linux was only complaining about "Combined Icons", after he got home from work yesterday.
As the de facto IT guy (because he uses Linux) he has to help his boss who uses a W7 laptop (with everything set to default).

strollin said:

You could switch between the desktops and have everything open and running for you to do a specific task. This would be much more useful if you could save the state of each virtual desktop so you could boot up with everything the way you want it.

GNOME has something like what you have described.
GNOME calls it "Activities".
http://www.linuceum.com/Distros/osWorkspaceGnome3.php