CubeDesktop: 3D virtual desktops

Sometimes it is desirable to work in multiple desktops environment. CubeDesktop allows me to have up to 6 virtual desktops. The navigation between desktops is presented in 3D, somewhat similar to Flip3D in Windows Vista. Like Flip 3D and DreamScene in Vista, the effects look cool at first sight, but very soon you will find them having not much practical values....

In CubeDesktop, you can switch desktop in 3D cube. The practical problem is, no matter how I rotate the cube, it is no easy to find the 5th and 6th desktops from the cube.


So, how about the 3D carousel views? Carousel views are better than the cube. I can see all my 6 desktops on the screen which is what I want.




Another navigation option is Desktop Explorer, putting all 6 desktops on a flat panel. I can zoom in and out the panel. However, it is hard to pan around on this view. If I am not careful with my mouse click, CubeDesktop will switch to that desktop although I only want to move the panel....


Another feature is Windows Exposer, which is similar to Alt+Tab in Windows. It display all the open applications on that desktop on a 3D panel. It does not look better than Flip 3D in Vista. And I am sticking to Alt+Tab to switch applications...


Here are the screenshots of CubeDestop's Options screen and its memory usage on my laptop. I would say the memory usage is still reasonable for a 3D application.




One annoyance 'feature' of CubeDesktop: When my mouse cursor moves too close to right bottom corner of the screen, my desktop will zoom out into 3D cube automatically....while I only want to interact with my system tray icons.

In conclusion, CubeDesktop is good, but I don't need, and will probably will not use, most of the fancy features. I hope CubeDesktop has a free lite version with those not so useful features removed.