By David Ponce
A few days ago, we brought you news of TopDesk 1.4, a great piece of software that reproduced on Win XP the nifty “Expose” functionality found on OSX. For those of you who only rarely come out from under your rock, “Expose” is a feature that lets you dynamically tile all the windows you’re using so you can find the one you’re looking for more quickly. It looks great, and helps with productivity.
Well, the guys at Otaku Software just kicked it up a notch with the release of TopDesk 1.4.1 The main difference? It integrates “Flip 3D”, a feature to be found on the upcoming Windows Vista. Matter of fact, some say that along with some cosmetic changes, Flip 3D is just about one of the few good improvements over XP.
Anyway, the software works like this. Upon the press of a button, or a mouseover of a predefined region of the screen, all your windows will resize, line up in the middle of the screen, and tilt sideways (like on the picture). Then, you simply flip through them (hence the name) with your scrollwheel until you find the one you’re looking for.
The animations are smooth and look pretty freaking slick. I’ve been using it for half an hour, and I have to say, I’m excited to have this piece of software on my PC. If any of your windows are minimised, then these will be transparent when lined up, and this too looks very nice. All in all, it’s definitely worth a try. It’s not freeware, but at $10, it is cheapware. Or perhaps, a-lot-cheaper-than-Vista-ware.
A couple of small things before you install. If you’re using Firefox, there is a small issue with keyboard shortcuts unintentionally activating the “find” feature. But this can easily be fixed with a quick workaround. Go to “Tools -> Options -> Advanced”, and under the “Accessibility” section, disable “Begin finding when you begin typing”. For more on this, go here. Also, try to make sure you’re running Firefox 1.5.0.1.
