10-12-2011, 05:55 AM

Hi

I a bit of a productivity junky and believe 2D desktops are not productive at all. What is needed is a means to have different sorts of filing of desktop items AND windows. Open windows shrunk down instead of either resized, minimised or open, different areas for different files, windows etc. We need to abandon the traditional 2D approach, and open up the desktop to a proper and more productive file and window management area.

Anyway... I found BumpTop. It looked great! Just what I need. Then I found it its acquired by Google back in 2010 and closed down. Yet Google have not re-released it. It seems the fantastic software that would boost productivuty and just what I need is just removed and no replacement provided. Crazy...

SO anyone know if an alternative?

Thanks!

10-17-2011, 10:47 AM

there are plenty of websites that you can download a version of bumptop from before google acquired it

try en.softonic.com, it has a lot of good software and you should be able to get either a windows or a mac version there

10-18-2011, 04:25 PM

Thanks a lot! I found it and tried it.... actually its not as good it looks, maybe because its the free version and not the pro that requires a license. It does not work on multiple monitors as I have, so I still see all my desktop icons on the right monitor, and additional spaces. I also dont think it reduces Windows down to a thumbnail rather than minimise. Something like Minimize or ThumbWin for windows but on a Mac.

Thanks

03-19-2013, 02:40 PM

3 years and this app has completely died with no hints as to its revival or future plans for its use by Google. I had an entire workflow built around BumpTop's functionality. What happened? There have been zero updates to the site and the developers seem to have completely abandoned the project! What are they doing? Why completely kill off such a great app? Flip-through stacks of documents on the desktop, large preview icons of images and pdfs, one-click visual sorting... These features were a productivity life saver!

Has anyone found any decent alternatives to this? Please???

03-22-2013, 05:02 AM

Welcome to Google. If a project doesn't support their advertising objectives, it will eventually be killed off.

(I could put a LONG list of such good ideas here, but it's late. The latest casualties are Google Reader and Snapseed for Mac. Thanks a lot, Google ...)

Anyway, I don't have a replacement 3D desktop for you, but in the spirit of "think different" I'm going to suggest you take a look at Raskin ... created by one of the original Mac designers ... have a look and see what you think.

03-22-2013, 08:50 AM

Originally Posted by chas_m

Welcome to Google. If a project doesn't support their advertising objectives, it will eventually be killed off.

To be fair, that's no different than any company - no corporation will keep anything around if it doesn't contribute to the bottom line in some way.

It doesn't look like there's a full replacement but it's possible that you could replicate some of the functionality using other software. What exactly are you looking for?

03-23-2013, 02:59 PM

Originally Posted by vansmith

What exactly are you looking for?

To be specific, I'm looking for an alternative to BumpTop's flip through stacks. At the very least, a way to "flip through" a folder. Also, resizable desktop icons. One-click, visual sorting into stacks is another big one, but finders new "arrange by" feature kind of does that.

Originally Posted by chas_m

Anyway, I don't have a replacement 3D desktop for you, but in the spirit of "think different" I'm going to suggest you take a look at Raskin ... created by one of the original Mac designers ... have a look and see what you think.

Well, I'm trying a free trial of "Raskin", but it's not quite what I'm looking for. Its cool, but it actually feels like I'm just running Windows 8 in a virtual machine...

03-24-2013, 03:00 AM

"I'll tell him you said that ... I think he'll be very hurt."