I saw a link to Virtue the other day at the Tao of Mac, and all I can say is… WOW.
Why didn't I try virtual desktops before?! Maybe I thought I didn't have enough windows open at any one time to require it (I was wrong). Maybe I thought that would defeat the purpose of using MacOS X and Expose (wrong again).
I routinely have 5-10 windows open in OmniWeb, plus NewsFire, Adium, iCal, Mail and so on, which leads to a lot of hidden applications, even with two monitors (both 1024×768). Not to mention that if I'm doing coding, I will have XCode open (the project window takes up a whole monitor by itself), plus a plethora of editor windows and AppKiDo and other assorted documentation. Ergh.
With Virtue, I've got a "desktop" for all my work-related stuff (XCode, AppKiDo and web browser windows go in there), one for Mail, one for NewsFire and web pages I've spawned from that, and another general-use "desktop". I've only used it briefly, but it makes things a bit neater. I'm sure I'll appreciate it even more next time I do some development on this computer.
Something great about Virtue is that I can pull up options for individual windows and either send the whole application to a specific "desktop" or just that window. You can even set the window or application to be shared across all "desktops" (e.g. I want Adium to be accessible no matter what "desktop" is currently in use). One thing that's missing is having a keyboard shortcut to send a particular window to another desktop. I had a look around in the forums, though, and it seems the developer will be working on that in the future. Neat. (One user suggested being able to "copy" and "paste" windows to achieve this functionality. That would be VERY neat.)
