The first DeskSpace 1.5.8 beta is now available to all registered users. Click here to download it from the beta download page. Get it while it’s hot!

DeskSpace 1.5.8 will be a free upgrade to the current version, DeskSpace 1.5.7.2.

Standard Disclaimer: This is a beta version of DeskSpace, and it may contain numerous major and minor bugs. We don’t recommend it for every day use.

We usually test our betas with a small group of testers, but for 1.5.8 we’ve opened up the beta to all registered DeskSpace users. Why? One reason is that this version adds support for desktop icon auto-arrange and align to grid when showing different icons on each desktop. It’s a feature that’s been requested since the first version of DeskSpace, but we weren’t able to implement it until now because it was such a difficult technical problem to solve. After months of work we finally have the feature up and running on our test systems, but we now need to make sure it works on as wide a range of computer systems as possible, and our standard group of beta testers is too small to achieve this. The expanded beta will help us flush out any compatibility problems this feature has and make sure DeskSpace 1.5.8 is as bug-free as possible.

Another reason is that we’re putting a lot of work into providing assistance to users who find their computer can’t run DeskSpace. If your computer has hardware acceleration disabled or has a corrupt video driver installation, DeskSpace will now detect the problem and either try to fix it or tell the user how to manually fix it. Expanding the beta process to run on a much larger group of computers will help us make sure we’ve covered as many problem cases as possible, and that our fixes are working “out in the wild”.

So what’s new in DeskSpace 1.5.8? I’ll go into the new features in more detail in another post, but the main new features are:

• Support for per-desktop icon auto arrange and align to grid.
• The ability to (optionally) display an icon for each desktop in the system tray. Clicking an desktops system tray icon switches to that desktop.
• New configuration dialogs for window dragging, language, startup, system tray icons and the DeskSpace system tray menu, advanced window options, and advanced graphics options.
• A troubleshooting dialog that assists users who are experiencing problems running DeskSpace on their computer.

Based on the results of this beta, we expect to release another two or three beta versions in the coming weeks, and hope to have DeskSpace 1.5.8 ready for release by the end of June. As usual, if you run into any problems with the beta or have any question, either post a comment on this blog or the forums, or contact Support.

DeskSpace 1.5.7.2 has been released. This version includes minor bug fixes and compatibility improvements:

• Bug Fix – DeskSpace no longer displays a white border around the screen when the “Smooth Cube Edges” option is used with a static desktop cube background image.
• Bug Fix – The desktop cube no longer displays previously configured wallpapers when desktop wallpaper management is disabled.
• Bug Fix – The taskbar no longer pops up when switching to a desktop with no windows with taskbar autohide enabled.
• Bug Fix – Added compatibility with Stickies from Zhorn Software.
• Bug Fix – DeskSpace now supports different Windows Photo Gallery wallpapers on each desktop.

You can visit the DeskSpace page to find out more about DeskSpace, visit the Online Store to buy DeskSpace 1.5.7.2, and visit the Help page to upgrade to DeskSpace 1.5.7.2.

DeskSpace 1.5.7.1 has been released. This version includes minor bug fixes and compatibility improvements:

• New Feature – The DeskSpace Japanese and French localizations have been updated.
• Bug Fix – Dragging and dropping windows in the DeskSpace system tray menu caused the menu to move vertically on some computers. We’ve added a workaround to prevent this.
• Bug Fix – The DeskSpace system tray menu no longer displays a separator bar in the wrong position if there are no windows on Desktop 1.
• Bug Fix – Switching to windows on other desktops via the DeskSpace system tray menu now uses the correct zoom.
• Bug Fix – The DeskSpace system tray icon tooltip is now correctly updated when a window is dragged to another desktop.
• Bug Fix – The desktop name and picture OSD is now correctly updated on all monitors (this bug was introduced in DeskSpace 1.5.7).

You can visit the DeskSpace page to find out more about DeskSpace, visit the Online Store to buy DeskSpace 1.5.7.1, and visit the Help page to upgrade to DeskSpace 1.5.7.1.

I’m happy to announce that DeskSpace 1.5.7 has been released.

The main focus of this release is the DeskSpace system tray menu (i.e. the menu accessed by right-clicking on the DeskSpace icon in the system tray). The major change to this menu is that it’s now possible to move windows between desktops by dragging and dropping them in the menu:

A “Show Desktop Cube” menu item has been added for users who don’t like to press and hold CTRL+WIN, and we’ve also made more space for the desktop and window menu items. We’ve done this by grouping windows that appear on all desktops under an “All Desktops” category, and grouping the DeskSpace options and “Manage Desktop” menu items into sub-menus:

Another addition is the Configure On-Screen Display dialog, which allows you to turn on/off the display of the desktop name and picture when the desktop cube is shown (this will hopefully make forum user docdic happy!), and to specify the monitor(s) the desktop name and picture will appear on and the position they will appear at:

We’ve also made some improvements to desktop switching speed, improved the speed at which the Manage Desktop Icons dialog appears, added a “Remove Picture” button to the Manage Desktop Names and Pictures dialog, and added a workaround for problematic Windows start up programs like the ATI Catalyst Control Center.

Finally, by default we turn off dragging windows to other desktops when DeskSpace is running on Windows 7, since some Windows 7 features already use the screen edges, and users can now move windows between desktops using the DeskSpace system tray menu.

I hope you enjoy this new version of DeskSpace, and from everyone at Otaku Software we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

DeskSpace 1.5.7 contains the following additions and improvements:

• New Feature – Windows can be moved to other desktops by dragging and dropping them in the DeskSpace System Tray Menu.
• New Feature – Applications that appear on all desktops are now grouped under the “All Desktops” heading in the DeskSpace System Tray Menu.
• New Feature – DeskSpace can now be activated via the “Show Desktop Cube” menu item in the DeskSpace System Tray Menu.
• New Feature – The DeskSpace System Tray menu is now more compact, leaving more space to display desktops and their windows.
• New Feature – It’s now possible to remove a user-generated picture from the Manage Desktop Names and Pictures dialog.
• New Feature – The new Configure On-Screen Display dialog lets you to choose whether to display the desktop name and picture on screen when the desktop cube is shown.
• New Feature – DeskSpace now switches between desktops faster.
• Bug Fix – DeskSpace now tries to avoid any conflicts with video card utilities (e.g. ATI Catalyst Control Center) when Windows is booting up.
• Bug Fix – The Manage Desktop Icons dialog now appears much faster.
• Bug Fix – Dragging windows to other desktops is now disabled by default in Windows 7, as it conflicts with built-in Windows 7 functionality.

You can visit the DeskSpace page to find out more about DeskSpace, and visit the Online Store to buy DeskSpace 1.5.7.

An enterprising software engineer, Kenneth Brandon, has written software that allows DeskSpace to be controlled by a Nintendo Wii Remote control. You can check out a video of it in action below (skip to 1:05 to see DeskSpace):

After seeing the DeskSpace Wikipedia page languish for most of 2009 with numerous inaccuracies (e.g. it does *not* require DirectX 9, it’ll run just fine on DirectX 8.1 thank you very much, and it is *not* usually distributed as a .ZIP file), I decided to take matters into my own hands and update the page myself.

Big. Mistake.

One of the Wikipedia Powers-That-Be, Wikipedia administrator Orange Mike, came down on me like a ton of bricks and blocked me from editing the page (and any other page on Wikipedia). Now, I understand that the founder of Otaku Software editing the DeskSpace Wikipedia page is seen by Orange Mike as a conflict of interest (ironic, given his history), and if that’s how he wants to police the DeskSpace Wikipedia page then that’s fine.

I also have no intention of getting involved in a long, drawn-out fight over something as silly as a web page, and I’d much rather spend my time spent helping the Otaku Software team cook up new versions of DeskSpace and TopDesk for our fantastic users, so I’m not going to appeal the block.

However, it worries me is that there’s inaccurate information on the DeskSpace Wikipedia page and I have no way to correct the mistakes. As an example, the DeskSpace Wikipedia page stated that DeskSpace requires DirectX 9. Despite it clearly stating that DeskSpace requires DirectX 8.1 on our system requirements page, and despite my *cited* changes to the DeskSpace Wikipedia page to reflect this, the page has since been changed back to state that DeskSpace requires DirectX 9.

I know I’m nitpicking, but what’s the point of having DeskSpace on Wikipedia if the information isn’t accurate, and what’s the point Wikipedia administrators policing edits if they’re not going to ensure the correctness of an article? Wikipedia is a great tool, but it’s all too easy for a topic to suffer because editors either can’t be bothered or simply don’t care enough to verify its accuracy.

At the moment I’m at a complete loss as to how I can fix this sad state of affairs, so if anyone has any advice on the best way to ensure the DeskSpace Wikipedia page is up-to-date and accurate then I’d really like to hear from you.