VirtuDesk 1.14 released

Hi All,

Version 1.14 of VirtuDesk is available for download.

What is VirtuDesk

In the words of original author David Llewellyn-Jones:

“VirtuDesk allows you to access a ‘virtual’ desktop area. The idea is that, for those people who find their desktop is constantly getting clogged up with layer upon layer of windows, VirtuDesk will provide large amounts of extra desktop space without the need to resort to lower resolution screen modes.

It does this by providing an area up to 144 times the size of your original desktop which you can scroll around and keep windows in. A desktop variant for the Unix operating system I once used had a similar feature, and this is where the original idea to write the program came from."

What has changed

This version is a major rewrite of the original 1.12 version (David’s latest release). It’s much smaller as the resources have been taken out and are now loaded on start-up.

The icons that represent windows within the virtual desktop can now be selected and moved around, the windows they represent will be moved accordingly.

Windows can be cemented in place meaning they will always remain visible when the screen’s position within the virtual desktop is changed.

The configuration program has been rewritten as an AppBasic application. Choices are now saved as key/value pairs making them more readable, and easier to handle (no more position dependence).

Fetching windows

Also included is WinFetch, a small application that allows any window (whether open, iconised or hidden) to be fetched and brought to the front on the screen, even if it’s currently outside of the screen area.

WinFetch is just a test application to see if the concept works before incorporating it into VirtuDesk. It should be treated as alpha grade code, I just wrote it over the weekend.

Version 1.14 of VirtuDesk[link] is available for download

One small note: the link is http and works fine, but if you switch over to https then it’s broken.

Reason: The certificate is valid for the iconbar.com, iconbar.org and iconbar.co.uk domains, but if the link quoted is www.stronged.iconbar.org (or com or co.uk) it’s nolonger valid as that is a host “www” in the domain stronged.iconbar.org (or etc)

If a users browser tries https first (many do these days) there will be an error.

Easily sidestepped by giving the link as https://stronged.iconbar.org (etc)
That of course also throws up errors when trying to download insecure link content (http) from a secure page https

Pain innit?

Thanks, Steve. Link amended accordingly.

The follow up:

That of course also throws up errors when trying to download insecure link content (http) from a secure page https

Changing all the http links to https is a lengthier process.
NB As a note to all readers: A recent patch/update to MS Edge and Chrome now has those two browsers throwing up protests and general failure to download files from mixed HTTP / HTTPS, and it is causing problems with web based systems in our establishment.

Yep, we’re having issues here too. While the “main system” is HTTPS, the reporting feature generates PDFs and serves them over HTTP. Edge users are not having fun.

While the “main system” is HTTPS, the reporting feature generates PDFs and serves them over HTTP. Edge users are not having fun.

There is a GPO you can apply, our EUC guys have pushed that out and then adding the specific site FQDNs to the policy.
I think it’s probably similar to the IE-mode stuff that supplies a crutch to the web apps that cause Edge to spit the dummy.