OS X desktop managers

[MrGongGong]

Dave, you aren't related to Franz Kafka or Rube Goldberg by any chance ?

[Dave2002]

Dave, you aren't related to Franz Kafka or Rube Goldberg by any chance ?

No!

Here is my answer to that

[Dave2002]

Here is my further response to the sceptics round here - this is what my desktop tends to look like more often these days using the ProjectDesktops tool. I work on the desktop, and then dump all the files into a folder. If I want to work on a different project I simply switch desktop to that, or create a new project desktop.

Unfortunately there seem to be problems with obtaining this tool in the UK right now, and no sign of a new version, or any equivalent "replacement" version from any other firm or developers.

http://www.project-desktops.com/ might work in the US based App Store - but perhaps not

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/42...ojectdesktops# - gets to trial version

As I do have versions which I think are legit on my machines, I may try to find a way to migrate these to the machines which don't have it, but that doesn't help anyone else out there in the UK who'd like a tool like this. The trial version should still be available - indeed I downloaded and installed it a few days ago.

[Dave2002]

I tried a few alternatives to Project Desktops recently - one freebie and one for £1.99. The Freebie is Mr.Tidy - and it does clear the desktop quickly, but then all the items get bundled into a folder. They don't go back to the desktop later. The other is TidyDesktop which has similar limitations. Neither of these really does provide quite the same functionality as Project Desktops - which I still prefer. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be available in the UK right now.

[Dave2002]

Sod's Law - and perhaps a solution ....

Yesterday I tried to tidy my MBP up quite a bit to save space, and used a combination of Project Desktops and Gemini - which I've mentioned before (that's the first version of Gemini - not Gemini II). One "problem" I didn't figure until yesterday was that quite often I would be in one desktop space in PD, and then I'd put a few items in which didn't really belong there. That could happen for various reasons - but I'm sure I can't be the only one who does that. You could be working on Photographs, and then someone might phone, so you would put notes in a file, and dump the file on the desktop. If you do this enough times, the desktop contains a random collection of files, and not necessarily too many of them related to Photographs - or whatever.

One solution to this problem is to use an external storage device as a temporary carrier for a copy of the incorrectly located file, but then one has to upload from that to the "correct" desktop and then delete the original from the other desktop.

There are several other "solutions" - but some are worse than that - for example sending files by email to oneself, etc.

Yesterday I found what I though was a good solution. The PD application has a couple of options from the meniu "Switch Desktop" and "Open Project Desktop". I could never quite see the use of the second one, but then I wondered if I could move files from the active current desktop into the folder corresponding to the opened folder using the Open Project Desktop option.

Indeed this did seem to work, and I was doing quite well, or so I thought for a few hours. Then things seemed to go wrong. I found I couldn't change the current desktop using PD any more. I looked for solutions, but I couldn't get this fixed. It looked like a preferences problem. I tried verifying the whole volume using Disk Utility - it was OK. I figured out that if I deleted the plist file associated with PD, that it should make a new version and it would then function properly. I deleted the plist file - but the behaviour remained.

This morning I was trying to figure this out again, and as a test I tried to create a new folder on my desktop. I was asked for a password. This is/was unusual behaviour. This alerted me to another potential problem - incorrect or unset preferences. I looked into this and was trying to figure this out, and then I looked at the files/folders in the Home area. Looking at the Info panel for the Desktop I noticed it was Locked. I unlocked this and subsequently the PD application started to function as before. Hopefully this has now been fixed, but I wasn't aware of how the Desktop became locked, which presumably what was stopped PD displaying the wanted files.

If this application continues to work it does provide an acceptable solution to the problems of working with many different projects on one machine. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than many others.

For tidying up - which is where I started - I have a desktop now called Pending Delete. If I discover files to delete, or duplicates I really don't need using Gemini, I can move them there - and then either back them up - if I really am concerned - or simply delete them if I'm not. I switch between the other desktops while keeping that Pending Delete desktop folder open.

[Dave2002]

This is still an issue for me, and now we are talking about many Gbytes of files.

The assumption that one is only working on one project at a time is false - though at any specific time there will only be one active project. I might be working on a video project, a music project, a writing project, a managing people project, etc.

The projects may overlap, but ideally one wants to keep most resources with the project they are associated with.

Richard - upstream - was right about using hierarchies - and maybe graph structures and visual representations would be useful as well, but even something relatively simple to bring order into affairs would be helpful.

I still have old copies of Project Desktops which seem to work. Not perfect, but much the easiest way to get a clean space.

Also useful for anyone who works with Zoom or other screen sharing apps - though of course many have now given that up since the Covid issues have to an extent passed. Being able to get a clean desktop rapidly for use with screen sharing is a concern for anyone concerned about privacy and security.