Solo Technology

For almost a month now, Dana Hanna, aka “Software Jedi” has been cranking out one application per day. Many are interesting, some are useful, while others are definitely in the “edge case” category. But it’s an interesting blog to follow!

Earlier today I had a chance to check out Saturday’s App and I think this one may be in the very useful category. It’s one of those “why didn’t someone think of this before” type applications. He calls it a Jedi Window Dock. I would describe it as a way to do tabbed applications.

There’s an original version there and a “modded” version (source only). Since I have Visual Studio, I grabbed the modded version and built it. (I wonder if it can be built with the free visual c# express? [updated - you can]) When run, you get a plain looking app that lists the programs running on your computer. Select one and click “Add to Tab”. *poof* A new tab is added to the utility.

Now sure, windows will do something similar to this with the Win XP “group similar windows” feature. But this is way easier to deal with than that — and much more user-friendly. For instance, earlier today I had 3 explorer windows open to various server shares and the VSS client. I was developing in one directory and then moving code around on the fly to the other ones. By pulling all those into tabs I didn’t have to do nearly as much clicking and searching for the right window. Everything was right there where I needed it.

Running IE6 and want tabs? Why add a browser plugin or extension? This’ll do it. Have a bunch of browsers running while testing new web dev? Tab ‘em all up. Stack of documents opened? Yep — tab ‘em. Truly, this is pretty slick and has quite a few interesting uses.
Having the source to it is fun. I have some ideas…

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