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Comment by emeraldd | Hacker News Reader

There's one feature that keeps windows out of the running for me that almost every X Windows manager has in some form or another. Multiple desktops (not multiple monitors). I know there was an XP powertoy that sort of did it for windows but it ran slower than dirt on any hardware I had available. Without that, I can't help but see the Windows WM as hobbled.

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Maybe this should be addressed elsewhere, but I wonder what you see as the benefit of multiple desktops. I've dabbled with them on occasion, and could never really see the point. Maybe my workstyle just doesn't fit well with it, and maybe I need to be more organized and/or disciplined. Obviously many, many people do like the capability, and I wonder what I'm missing.

I find virtual desktops to be most useful on small screens. So on my laptop which has limited screen real estate I have a text editor on one desktop and by moving my mouse to the top left I switch to my browser desktop - v.useful

Only problem is that this has become so ingrained that I keep doing it on computers without this setup!

I can't really deal with a taskbar or alttab list having dozens of items in it. It's unmanageable.

I use desktops to partition stuff so there are manageable amounts of Windows at a time.

My best use case for multiple desktops is to have my fun stuff on one desktop and my work stuff on another. When the desktop flips, so does my mind. Also, when the boss walks by it's easy to hide HN and move to work stuff.

Other examples:

Hide away your email and other interruptions until you're explicitly ready to go look at them. Out of sight, out of mind.

Multiple projects. I have a legacy app I support and a new-development project I spend most of my time on. I can spread the work for each of these out across multiple windows on multiple desktops, and switch between them when I'm ready to context-switch. When I do, everything is laid out exactly the way I want it.

I'm back on Windows for now, but great multiple desktop support is the thing I miss most from a Linux desktop.

If you're multitasking on a single monitor, all you have to switch between tasks is the taskbar, or alt+tab. Alt+tab switches between windows, but most tasks require a collection of different windows. Eg right now I'm stuffing about on HN and some other sites (1) while waiting for my code to compile (2) after which I'll be executing my app and testing it (3) while checking my mail and real-time IM (4)

Ideally I'd have four dedicated monitors - but on my one work monitor I'd settle for four virtual desktops that I can cycle through similar to alt+tab.

I use dexpot for virtual desktops. Very customizable. You can bind hotkeys, or screen hotspots (mine is top left pixel) for switching between desktops. I use it on an underpowered laptop with no performance issues.

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