Today is a historic day...

...in this geeks life. What, You ask could be so important to cause me to create such a fanfare? Well first of all I am land0 fanfare is just part of who I am. But the real reason I am sounding my barbaric Yalp! across the rooftops of geekdom is this. I have just graduated into consistently using 16 Virtual Desktops!!! (note to self never and I mean never use the acronym for virtual desktops while presenting Freedomware to a client.)

I can still remember discovering virtual desktops for the first time. I just stared in disbelief. The most I could handle at one time without having a spare just flapping in the wind. Nagging me constantly please find a use for me. Was two. Then I upped the anti and went for 4. Yes yes I have a thing about even numbers. Last year I moved up to eight that I have been consistently using and are in various states of use. But 16? Man I never thought I would get it that bad. But then again you know what they say about unabashed love... It makes you do crazy things.

How many virtual desktops are you all using? How did you get there? What was your reaction when it really sunk in that you now had a vast number of desktops at your fingertips?

Get Freedomware! Get A Life!

Eventually, it would be nice to see such a tool (multiple desktops) in action. I have seen the beryl examples where multiple desktops are used. With or without beryl, they have a value that hopefully can be captured visually.

[Note to self: really try and remember to look into the one-click/two-click shortcut since its fast and convenient not to have to reach for a keyboard short-cut (which some will never learn) or to move the mouse around and aim properly to switch desktops or even to slide the mouse to the side of the desktop to change to the adjacent one (eg, fvwm95 had/has this feature).

Actually, keyboard short-cuts are very good.]

On olvwm and also when I played with the (proprietary) QNX OS, I used nine desktops. (On olvwm I would sometimes grow to 16 or even more, as needed. AFAIK it's the only WM that allows a real number of desktops (eg 4.5) and that allows the view to be anywhere on the plane of virtual desktops rather than stuck to an integer position on the grid... you gotta configure it right to get that behavior, though).

Now I use a clone of the plan 9 window manager, with no desktops, and apparently no alt-tab like functionality. It's a bit cramped.