As most of us developers know, trying to do testing and trying to manage desktop space is next to impossible.

Add chats and other windows to the mix and you have NASA Misssion Control but being only managed by one person.

There is a little known or at least talked about utility provided by Microsoft as one of their XP Power Toys known as "Virtual Desktop Manager" that can be very useful while doing Skype development on Windows XP.

Ah, but what can it do for me you say?

It allows 4 different desktops to run at the same time, the toolbar can be shared ("Made Common") or each desktop can maintain their own toolbars.

Now you can have your API monitor(s) running in one desktop, your development suite such as Visual Studio running in another, Skype and Skype Chats running in another, and still have one desktop to spare.

This can really come in handy as well when you need to test with multiple Skype Clients at the same time.

It takes some getting used to, but I am sure you will see the benefits right away.

You can even see 4 frozen views of all your desktops at once if needed.

The online documentation by Microsoft on this tool is not very extensive.

Here is a link to the Microsoft XP PowerToys page:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloa...ppowertoys.mspx

Here is a direct link to the Virtual Desktop Manager:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/whi...wertoySetup.exe

This utility also has add/remove logic so if you decide you want to remove it that' not problem.

OK, you download and install it and nothing seems to happen!

Right Click on your toobar in some empty area ("Not your System Toolbar") select toolbars select desktop manager.

POOF! well look at that you now have a Green Button with 4 tiny squares and 4 Blue Buttons numbered 1-4.

The Green Button is a quick view of all 4 of your new desktops, click in it!
you will notice 3 are grey because they have not been opened yet, click on the one displayed, nice hey?

OK, I assume you must have Skype running, minimize it to the System toolbar, Click on the Blue Button 2 Maximize Skype. now click on the green button, then click on the One Desktop in the left corner to come back here.

In this case notice how all your items on the toolbar are shared, by the 2 open windows when you click 1 or 2 the same items on the toolbar are displayed for all 4 desktops.

If you would like to only have the toolbar Items displayed that are using the desktop you are viewing you can toggle this by right clicking on the MVDM toolbar and unchecking "Share Desktops" now when you click blue button 2 only Skype will show up on that desktop toolbar.

The MSVDM takes up lots of space itself on the toolbar so you can turn off and on items you may not need or use.

For example, right click on the MSVDM toolbar and uncheck "Show Quick Switch Buttons" now all the blue buttons are gone and you can just click the green button to get to each desktop.

You can even assign your own shortcut keys to flip from desktop to desktop, just right click on the MSVDM toolbar and select "Configure Shortcut Keys". You also can assing different backround images to each desktop, simply right click on the MSVDM toolbar and select Configure Desktop Images".

You also can right click on the MSVDM toolbar to get help on the toolbar.

For those people who need to be in many chats at the same time ("You Know who you are :wink: ") you may wish to keep the toolbar common to all 4 desktops so if you miss a chat sound you can still see the toolbar flash on any desktop you are currently viewing.

I wish I could quantify how helpful this simple tool can be when doing Skype development but you will need to see for it with your own eyes.

Hope this helps others with testing and development.

Enjoy!

Simple, all that takes up alot of runtime and slows down development because ya always messing about with fiddly software that .. lets face it .. is expensive and is just another thing that demands clicking at, MS know this (As directed in the standardisation sectons of MSDN: "You should make the user feel they have acheived a task rather than just getting the job done, an application could have a single button and acheive the same thing but this would not be as ewarding for the end user")

My solution: 4 flat sreens and 2 dual head "ok" performance graphics cards. cost around 200GBP (cheapies from ebuyer) now i have 4 desktops, 1 for IM's, 1 for VR, 1 for debug output and testing and hte last for for sources.

No mesisng, where one desktop end another begins, its like having one HUUUUGE desktop and the loss of performance is just about .. well .. nothing.

Just another alternitive to he one mentioned above, and whats more, multipul desktop intergration is built right into windows, meaning, yup, you already have it installled.

TIP: ATI would be the way to go, ive tried NVidia cards and their very games ortiantated didnt give as good performance, but im not a gamer so i probably didnt have them set up right.

)


P.S.
My system is running 2x Sapphire cards, one is PCI and the other is PCIe but my older system used a AGP radeon 9000 and some PCI RagePRO (value about 2GBP lol) i found under a bench somewhere both models worked just fine.


Morlan

nice to read it ..... cool stuff

_________________
nikky
Dubai Property