We took special effort to ensure that multiDesk is user friendly to keyboard users. A keyboard user can navigate between desktops without using the mouse at all.
SCROLLING - In multiDesk, the virtual desktops can be envisioned as lined up in a row, so to the right of the first desktop is the second desktop, and to the right of the second desktop is the third desktop, etc. as shown in figure 1. This means, you can scroll between desktops. If you are on desktop number two, you can right scroll to desktop three, or left scroll to desktop number one. This way, you only need to use two hot keys to navigate between desktops, scroll left and scroll right.
JUMPING - You can also jump directly to a desktop. For example, you are on desktop number four, and you want to switch directly to desktop number two. Simply press the hotkeys corresponding to desktop number two, and you will directly jump there.
If you are a heavy keyboard user, we recommend you select the "use only one icon" option in the Taskbar & Mouse Control menu. This replaces all your multiDesk icons with just one icon, and saves you taskbar space, as shown in figure 2. To read more about this, read Taskbar & Mouse Control.
figure 1
figure 2
The Hotkey Settings menu appears as below:
- enable scrolling - Checking this box allows you to use hotkeys to scroll between desktops. The concept of scrolling is described at the beginning of this page. Use key modifiers + LEFT to scroll left, and key modifiers + RIGHT to scroll right. For example, if your key modifiers are CTRL+ALT, then you should use CTRL+ALT+LEFT to scroll left, and use CTRL+ALT+RIGHT to scroll right.
- enable jumping - Checking this box allows you to use hotkeys to jump directly to a desktop. The concept of jumping is described at the beginning of this page. Use key modifiers + number key to jump to a desktop. For example, if your key modifiers are CTRL+ALT, then you should use CTRL+ALT+2 to jump to desktop two.
- key modifiers - Selecting the combination of keys to act as hotkeys. For example, when the boxes for both CTRL and ALT are selected, your key modifiers are CTRL and ALT. On the other hand, if you want to use only the Window key as the key modifier, you should check the Win box, and uncheck all the other boxes. In this case, WIN+LEFT will scroll left, while WIN+RIGHT will scroll right.
- wrap desktops - When this box is unchecked, the desktops are arranged in a row. So, if you have three virtual desktops, then desktop number 2 is to the right of desktop number 1, and desktop number 3 is to the right of desktop number 2. However, there would be no desktop to the right of desktop number 3, because it is the last desktop. By checking the "wrap desktop" box, you turn the desktop into a circular queue. So to the right of desktop number 3 is desktop number 1.
- There is a hotkey combination to bring up the settings dialog box. It is key modifiers + UP. So if your key modifiers are CTRL+ALT, you press CTRL+ALT+UP to bring up settings dialog box.
