Trombettworks software

Absolute efficiency: These kinds of "organizing" softwares are either super comfortable and absolutely responsive or just useless. Flash Desktops is simply the fastest virtual desktop manager ever created. It's optimized up to the assembler level obtaining REALTIME performances. The windows are switched as fast as theoretically possible, with virtually NO overhead. Optimizations range from superfast hooks to avoid polling to pipeline multithread internal structure and Windows API scheduling to optimize Microsoft Windows painting routines. All this and much more allows a speed and responsiveness from 2 to 3 times faster than competing products.

The most comfortable: The standard way to move a window to another desktop is: "Just focus it and then rightclick to the desktop-icon where you want to send it to" (of course you also have many hotkeys). This has proven to be the most efficient way and it's almost laziness-proof. Actually with most VDMs moving a window elsewhere is so complicated that in facts you find yourself always using the first desktop. On the contrary reorganizing the windows in the desktops with FD is ligtning fast, and this greatly improves your productivity.

No real drawbacks: If you use it your system will be just like before. FD is extremely light and uses a minimal amount of resources and no CPU time when idle. And it's totally unobtrusive.

You always know what is happening: FD gives feedback to let you know if there are problems of any kind (e.g. nonresponsive applications) and you always have detailed info. The manual widely documents how FD works and all the possible conflicts/solutions.

The most compatible: Bored by the nasty Internet Explorer 5 bug which makes you constantly lose all the windows with all the virtual desktop managers which work with the show/hide technique? You don't want to use a moveaway virtual desktop manager because it leaves you the buttons in the taskbar for all the windows of all the desktops? Stop searching: FD is the ONLY virtual desktop manager which simultaneously workarounds both these two nasty bugs. How? Read the next point.

FD is both show/hide and moveaway: In the past every VDM chose its strategy: Show/hide virtual desktop managers send messages to windows telling them to appear or disappear to simulate the multiple desktops. This is a fast technique but Internet Explorer 5 has a "security feature" which constantly destroys hidden windows everytime a popup appears. Moveaway virtual desktop managers never hide windows: they only change the coordinates to move them outscreen. This avoids the IE5 bug but it's very slow, prone to crashes/hangups, and above all it leaves the button in the taskbar even for windows which belong to other desktops. When you have 3 windows per desktop the taskbar begins to become quite useless... FD is the ONLY virtual desktop manager which lets you choose for which programs to use show/hide (default) and for which moveaway (only IE5 usually :). And it's the ONLY VDM which allows you to hide the taskbar buttons even when using moveaway. The moveaway performances are so much optimized that they are quite close to the FD show/hide ones.

The most flexible: When you will become a veteran (actually this doesn't require much time) you will appreciate the hundreds of features FD puts at your disposal to customize and/or automate its behaviour. Windows Rules (automatic action triggered by specified events) are the most powerful ever created (nearly 200 options) and allow you to extend compatibilty towards the nastier applications. If they this is not enough FD can be remotely controlled by external programs through Windows messages (C Header file included). You also receive notifications by FD about every action/event happening (even window rules triggering) and extend its functionality by cooperating with your "plugin" application.

The only one with Privacy features: There is way to hide all the FD icons from the system tray and drive all the functionalities with hotkeys. In this way the system is apparently "clean" and nobody can imagine that you have other windows hidden somewhere.

Best learning curve: Reading the QuickStart chapter requires around 2 minutes and you will already be able to do many things which you can't even dream with other VDMs

Long evaluation period: you can freely evaluate the program for 21 days of effective use. This is much longer than the average evaluation period for shareware programs.

All these things make Flash Desktops the most impressive productivity enhancer ever created. It's cost (after the long evaluation period has expired) is a very fair $25.