Winson's dashboard

We've just added functionality to fix that -- it should be in the upcoming update.

Oh, if you are just trying to edit the files, you can use any text editor (even Notepad). – winson, on December 24, 2008 00:53

We have a number of users running on Vista 64bit machines -- can you give us a little more information on the problems you are encountering? – winson, on December 20, 2008 18:27

Have you already tried updating your video drivers on Vista/Windows 7? – winson, on December 19, 2008 04:56

Good point, we'll add something to address this in one of the upcoming updates. For now, can you shutdown BumpTop, move the file to a separate folder, restart BumpTop and move the file back?

Hi there,

There are definitely ways to simulate this -- the first of which is the Bump-This-Folder Explorer Extension, the second is to make a shortcut to the folder that you want and drag it into BumpTop. By using Expand-Pile functionality, you can browse items from that folder as if it was on your desktop!

We'll try and at least add an option for this in the next update.

Thanks – winson, on December 16, 2008 00:41

Hi,

This was an issue with earlier versions of BumpTop but should already be resolved. Can you try resetting your scene (https://bumptop.pbwiki.com/BumpTop-Mi...) and see if that helps?

Hi,

We have several people in the Beta using BumpTop on Vista 64bit. Can you give a little more information about the problems you're experiencing?

I'm slightly confused, the lasso should already allow you to encircle a bunch of files to select them. Can you clarify what you mean?

Can you post a link of the Manager program that you a referring to so that we can give it a test (and see if there's anything on our end that can be fixed)?

BumpTop shortcuts can be found here:
http://bumptop.pbwiki.com/BumpTop-Key...

though they may be subject to change (slightly) before the final release!

This is a valid question and I hope that everyone understands that more discussion is better than less. The iffy thing about GetSatisfaction is that comments get pushed down so quickly! (maybe you guys can direct people to this thread if the same question arises)

There's actually another post about open sourcing BumpTop where we posted a few of our thoughts, but that's slightly tangental to the question of whether a Linux version will be available. The short answer to the question is: Yes, we are working on a cross-platform version of BumpTop; No, we don't have any specific projections on when that will be available; and Yes, we are currently working furiously on making the BumpTop experience on Windows as solid as possible.

We have a small development team of less people than one has fingers on their left hand and right now, we are committed to bringing BumpTop to as many people (initially) as possible so that we can still be around to bring it to everyone else.

Hope that answers your question!

Hi Pete,

Can you try re-downloading the MSI installer and trying again?

The original video was actually of Anand's prototype for his Master's thesis -- so there wasn't actually any integration between BumpTop and the file/window system. The interfaces that Microsoft provides (especially in XP) aren't too nice, but there are also some people (Jon) trying to write plugins to do this. – winson, on December 15, 2008 23:52

I think Roman is referring to the VIP version of BumpTop (bumptop.com/vip) where a few users are getting the latest versions at the cost of potential instability. This is similar to how many open source programs have both stable and daily builds, and helps with the testing of BumpTop to make sure that we don't expose the whole user base to glaring mistakes.

Normal versions of BumpTop are released (usually) bi-monthly.

Hi Arjan,

We actually already read images on a second thread, but binding the images in OpenGL (moving the textures onto the graphics card for rendering) is still done on the main thread due to potential concurrency/utility issues. We are still working on the problem and hope to improve the startup time in one of the future updates though!

Thanks for your comment, you are right in that recent improvements to local file indexing indeed makes finding files easier than ever before, but BumpTop doesn't seek to replace but rather augment this technology.

Amongst other things, human beings have fantastic spatial memory which BumpTop takes advantage of to help you organize your desktop files more naturally.

Take this example: There are also a number of people who don't use computers on a daily basis and for those people, instead of having to remember that their excel files are in a folder called 'Account Summary', they can simply link the folder and throw the link in the top left corner of the BumpTop. Now say that they have a series of work related files (the file index has no notion of this relationship, at least with current technologies), by tossing all those related files to the top-left corner, he has immediately created a model of the relationship of all those files without having to remember a thing (except that work files are in the top left of the desktop).

Since the BumpTop experience attempts to be as fluid as possible, the same user also does not have to worry about premature organization (ie. creating folders for specific files) until they find that the spatial model no longer works for those files. And even in that case, we offer the ability to easily move between piles and folders.

Admittedly, BumpTop is not for everyone (nor all tasks), just as the hardcore computer users who still swear by the Terminal/command line interface. We do feel that BumpTop is a natural extension for many common, daily tasks which is why we are working on this software.

Thanks for the comment though -- it's a good opportunity for all of us to discuss the state of desktop interfaces and where it's headed in the future.

Can you post a screenshot of what you mean?

You probably have Debug mode on if scrolling is scrolling the view instead of the pile -- simply press Ctrl+Backspace to get out of debug mode. – winson, on December 11, 2008 16:58