TuneTracker™ QuickTip

The Benefits of Using Workspaces

First…if you didn’t see last week’s QuickTip, which demonstrates how to add a wonderful Workspaces gadget to your TuneTracker computer’s Deskbar, check it out here. It lays the groundwork for this week’s tip. https://www.tunetrackersystems.com/tips/WorkspacesInDeskbar.html

What’s the big deal about Workspaces? Workspaces lets you switch among multiple computer desktops, allowing you to place different programs on different desktops. Anyone who has ever waded through loads of overlapping windows can immediately see the benefit of that. An open window can even be dragged, visually, from one workspace to another, using the thumbnail images in the Workspaces switcher. You can also move a window by clicking-and-holding on the window’s tab, then doing CTRL-Fkey (1, 2, 3, whatever). The window, and your view, will be shifted to that desktop. The CTRL-F1, CTRL-F2, etc. trick works on its own, even without the Workspaces gadget in the Deskbar.

It’s about more than just extra screen space though. It’s also about flexibility. Believe it or not, you can actually set each Desktop workspace to a different screen resolution. That means you can make your first desktop lower resolution so AutoCast covers the whole screen, and make your other desktops higher resolution so there’s more elbow room for windows. Just switch to a desktop, go into Haiku screen preferences, choose a resolution, and tell it to only apply to the current workspace (not all workspaces).

One of the best uses of Workspaces in the TuneTracker System is when you want to connect to your computer remotely. Because remote access over TT Anywhere puts a fairly heavy load on the system, you can reduce the load, and the potential for interrupted over-the-air audio, by switching to a lower-resolution desktop. All of our newer systems ship out with workspace 5 set to 1024x768 and 8 bit color, which not only speeds up Internet access, but puts a significantly lower burden on your system. So if you log in, and the computer is set at a higher resolution than you want, you can just click the fifth workspace in the Deskbar gadget right after you log in, wait a moment, and it will reduce the resolution and speed up your work for you.