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If you are into keyboard shortcuts and love to move around quickly using the keyboard, then this is for you. Windows has always been trying best to improve keyboard shortcuts and making it easier to navigate around the desktop and windows. But if you are looking for more shortcuts on your keyboard then BetterDesktopTool is what you are looking for. BetterDesktopTool is a windows freeware that lets you arrange all the windows in a non-overlapping way and do a lot more with keyboard and mouse shortcuts. It adds Exposé and Spaces like features to your PC.
BetterDesktopTool for Windows desktop
The tool supports quite a lot of keyboard shortcuts, so before you choose all of them, make sure they do not interfere with the default Windows shortcuts. Because if this is the case, BetterDesktopTool's shortcuts will be given priority. The tool is completely free for personal use, but you might have to pay for the commercial version. It comes in the installer package and is also available in a non-admin version as well.
To get started, the tool has two types of features to offer: Windows & Desktop Overview and Virtual-Desktops. The first pool will let you decide keyboard shortcuts for various desktop and windows related actions.
Here are the desktop actions for which you can configure keyboard and mouse shortcuts using BetterDesktopTool:
- Show all Windows: Will display all the windows opened on respective monitors, almost like what Win+Tab will do for you.
- Show Foreground App Windows: This will display only the foreground windows on respective monitors. Windows that have been minimized or are not in focus will not be displayed.
- Show Desktop: A quick action that will take you to the desktop and will let you access any desktop shortcuts or files. This will not minimize opened applications and hence you can resume your work. This is a great feature when you want to access something on the desktop but not want to minimize all the windows that are opened.
- Show Non-Minimized Windows: Will only display those windows that are not minimized. Comes handy when you want to focus only on the work that you are currently doing.
- Show Minimized Windows: Will display the windows that are minimized on respective screens. This comes handy when you use some application less often and it stays minimized most of the times.
Add Exposé and Spaces like features to Windows
The program also supports creating virtual desktops. Although this feature comes built into windows, you can switch to BetterDesktopTool if you are looking for an alternative that is more keyboard friendly and customizable. You can easily set the number of virtual desktops you want. After that, you can set shortcuts to switch between desktops. These shortcuts come really handy when you quickly want to shift to another virtual desktop. Other than switching, you can even set shortcuts for transporting the foreground window to the next virtual desktop. Transporting is the feature that I found pretty useful in day to day tasks.
Apart from this, you can also select a hot corner for virtual desktops. Pointing the mouse towards that hot corner will activate it and you will be able to see all the virtual desktops right on the screen.
BetterDesktopTool is a great utility if you like to move around windows quickly. It is useful for a lot of people who tend to have a lot of windows opened on their computer. BetterDesktopTool offers some features that come built into Windows but at the same time offers more than that as well.
It is compatible with multiple monitor setup and works great, but there seemed to be a minor glitch in the resolution when it comes to multiple displays. Other than that, BetterDesktopTool makes it a lot easier to navigate using your keyboard. Click here to download BetterDesktopTool.
