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Submission details

22 +33/-11 votes

Allow us to click through the Aero Glass to the desktop.

Submitted by Arayta on January 4, 2009 to Usability

Wouldn't this be useful in this scenario:

1.) Open a full screen application.

2.) Press the Windows Key + Spacebar to use desktop peek.

3.) Try to click anything on your desktop. Yeah... you can't.

But wouldn't it be useful if you could? You could access something quickly and easily on your desktop without having to minimize your application(s), click what you want, then maximize the application again. Nice feature, don't ya think?

Allow us to click through the desktop peek glass to the desktop.

Medium

High

Not fixed

Discussion (11 comments)

Arayta wrote on January 4, 2009, 3:57am

Changed problem description.

.Chris wrote on January 4, 2009, 4:03am

Not only that, but also being able to hover over the open windows and see eirther a preview or a tool tip of the program and baing able to open the program.

Arayta wrote on January 4, 2009, 4:08am

Good idea Chris, but mabye a mouse over effect isn;t the right way to implement that. Then if your mouse is over any windows (which it most likely will be) you can't see the desktop, which defeats the purpose. Maybe that should only happen when you click a glass window.

tino wrote on January 4, 2009, 7:14am

This is not logical, IMO because WIN+Spacebar enables Aero Peek and you should not be able to click through glass. Confusing.

WIN+D does what you want. But they could improve it with maybe a similar fade-out effect.

Paralityk wrote on January 4, 2009, 3:31pm

While you can't click on anything I see no reason for Aero Peek Desktop Preview.

WindowsFan wrote on January 4, 2009, 6:38pm

-1
Just click "Show Desktop" to interact. Aero Peek is for looking, not interacting.

tino wrote on January 4, 2009, 6:44pm

@Paralityk: Aero Peek is for looking at the Gadgets on the Desktop.

.Chris wrote on January 4, 2009, 6:54pm

No, both of you guys are missing the point. You need to be more open minded

Arayta wrote on January 4, 2009, 7:41pm

Okay, it seems some people are still not catching on. I'll try explaining it in a different way.

@tino: Win+D does not do what I'm describing here. Win+D minimizes the windows. In that case, after clicking on what you want on the desktop, you would have to maximize the windows again either by using Win+D again, or just maximizing the ones you want. With what I'm talking about here, there is only one combination you have to do. It's quicker and easier, an to go back to your work again all you have to do is let go of Win+Spacebar. Also, making the windows turn to glass is faster than minimizing all the windows. That tends to make the computer slow for a second. Transparency is a very simple thing for modern computers, and can be done in a quick half second. Also, how is clicking through glass confusing? And I know you can look at gadgets, but what about more functionality?

@WindowsFan: That's exactly what I'm saying. Show Desktop *does not* allow you to interact with the desktop, it only allows you to see it. What's the point of that?

@Paralityk: Good point. If you can't do anything while looking at the desktop, then what good is it? Thank you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, I just hope that you guys can just admit that your first opinion isn't always right. Whenever you guys submit things that I don't agree with, I allow you to convince me otherwise, and a lot of times you have. You don't have to always defend your first opinion just to save face, because you might be letting a good idea go to waste. Not just on this site, but anywhere. Like Chris said, try to be more open minded.

And besides, can you honestly look me in the face and tell me that this would never be useful? =]

eikonoklastes2 wrote on January 4, 2009, 8:11pm

I agree with this completely. This would be dramatically useful for stuff like accessing the desktop immediately to drag a file into the app you're working on.

Paralityk wrote on January 4, 2009, 8:14pm

@tino
God! I forgot about gadgets, turned them off, as they were causing some problem with games (stupid slow downs)
Still functionality that @Arayta pointed could be nice, and it's not confusing ;) Don't get this "real world" similarities too serious (that was about clicking through glass)

broccauley wrote on March 8, 2010, 1:44am

@tino - this idea *would* be logical - you obviously could only click on the desktop icons while Win+space was held down.

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