Scrolling desktop is a kind of virtual desktop application that allows you to scroll the screen left and right giving you a much wider workspace compare to the usual fixed desktop. A scrolling desktop is also an anomaly in which your screen resolution is larger that what the monitor can display. Since the whole screen does not fit in the display, you need to scroll left or right or up or down to view the whole contents of the desktop. This can be annoying but some programmers found a way to use this to extend the desktop space. This enables you to have multiple windows maximized and without having to pres alt+tab to switch between windows. I have tried two free scrolling desktop applications: 360desktop and GiMeSpace Desktop Extender.
360desktop
At work, I have to use 4 different applications at the same time. To make matters worse, I need to be able to see what’s in 2 applications at the same time. This problem can be easily solved by using two monitors but working in a startup company denies me with that luxury. Since I was grew up believing that everything can be found on the Internet, I researched some cost-effective solutions. 360desktop is the first application I found.360desktop is a free download that transforms your Windows desktop into a 360° panoramic workspace. While all Windows functions operate normally, with 360desktop you can pan your desktop through 360°, giving you almost unlimited desktop space, with more room for all your open applications, browsers, windows, widgets and more.
Now you can personalize your supersized workspace with your favorite online and offline content - widgets, web pages, RSS feeds, slideshows, videos, all delivered into a stunning 360° photo background.
Here’s the demo to explain to you more about 360desktop (Since he’s the founder and CEO, he knows more than I do about this product.)
I used this application for around 2 months or so. And throughout that period I noticed many issues. Some of its disadvantage are:
- You cannot use your own background image.
- It takes time to load the application.
- It does not fully support multiple desktop manager applications.
- It shows annoying ads when you click in the navigator a couple of times.
- You don’t really have unlimited desktop space. You can only have around less than 10 windows maximized to consume the whole panoramic desktop.
- You cannot use your own background image.
There may be a a lot of changes in the program by now you, can just check out their website and try for yourself. I stopped using this program after I discovered a much simpler scrolling desktop application: The GiMeSpace Desktop Extender.
GiMeSpace Desktop Extender
After trying out 360desktop, I found it very complicated and I need a software that just does what I need and nothing else. I researched about virtual desktops at Wikipedia and found an article there about scrolling desktop. There I discovered GimeSpace. It’s a light,simple, and very useful program and it’s just what I need. It’s trial version has limited functionality but it works just fine. I allows me to have a very, very wide scrolling desktop. I haven’t tested how many windows I can fit horizontally but believe me, it’s WIDE!. It allows you to scroll the desktop by moving the mouse at the edge of the screen left or right or you can toggle scroll lock on and lock the desktop and scroll it by pressing ctrl+alt or shift+ctrl then move the mouse left or right.Oh, I just recently discovered that there is a free version and there’s a trial version. The free version just allows you scroll you desktop left and right and the trial version has a menu with some of the functionality of the full version. I’ll walk you through the different tabs of the trial version.
This is the navigation tab. I serves as the ‘viewfinder’ of your scrolling desktop. The small red box shows where your screen are and the small gibberish blacks are the windows. As you can see there a lot of space on the left and right to place you windows.
This is the Options tab. As you can see there are a lot of options that are disabled (the only ones that you can click are Repaint windows after scrolling and Show navigation icon for pen & touch screen computers.)
This is the Scrolling Windows tab. It shows the tasks that are running and here you can choose which windows are ‘fixed’ and will not scroll even if you scroll the desktop.
You basically can’t do anything on the “Help”, “Virtual Screen” and “Registration” tabs. Help just shows you the functionality of the program, “Virtual Screen” teaches you how to extend you desktop so that you can also scroll up and down. And “Registration” tab is well, the tab where you register so that you can fully use the program and all its features. And BTW, when you use the trial version, it annoys you about every 30 minutes if you want to register the product (I don’t really mind that).
So, that’s it! Scrolling desktops are very useful applications especially of you are multitasking. Give it a try guys and tell me what you think. And oh, if you know better ones, feel free to share it here!
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