out of site, out of mind

August 24, 2011 4:36 PM

Is there a program that will let me keep a bunch of windows open but pushed out of sight, so I can work with a relatively blank taskbar but not have to re-open everything when I'm done working?

Basically I want to keep my Chrome tabs "alive" but out of sight and mildly inaccessible and have only the window I'm working on in view on the taskbar. I'm slightly computer-stupid so any fix that requires more than pressing OK a bunch of times to install is pretty much out.

posted by threeants to computers & internet (8 answers total)

Also, I need flexibility for what I have up. Like, I need a Chrome window and possible Excel, Word, or whatever else I so choose.
posted by threeants at 4:39 PM on August 24, 2011

I think you want a virtual desktop.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 4:43 PM on August 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Here's a decent explanatory article.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 4:45 PM on August 24, 2011

For multiple Chrome windows, the Tab Sugar extension does exactly this. It puts a button in your toolbar that, when clicked, can shrink all your active tabs into a little box on a virtual desktop within Chrome. You can manage multiple groups of these tabs, and when one is active, all the other ones are out of sight. This lets you maintain multiple windows-worth of tabs without having them clutter up your tab bar or start bar space.
posted by Rhaomi at 5:19 PM on August 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I use mDesktop on my home Windows computer and love it.
posted by kprincehouse at 8:06 PM on August 24, 2011

I use VirtuaWin on my home Windows computer and love it. It seems to be similar to mDesktop mentioned by kprincehouse.
posted by msittig at 10:59 PM on August 24, 2011

On the Mac you could either download the free backdrop.app which is like a big pull-screen to cover everything up.

OR you can uses Spaces which is basically like switching desktops.

Come to think of it, I should take more advantage of Spaces.
posted by jander03 at 7:01 AM on August 25, 2011

On preview, villanelles link represents the Spaces part of my answer. Also, Linux has had this for ever and ever.
posted by jander03 at 7:03 AM on August 25, 2011