it does look very powerful...  i guess i'm just turned off by having to learn the specific syntax for powerpro.  it is not exactly a tool of ease (especially for the advanced stuff i am talking about).  you have to have a lot of time that you can dedicate to it (which many people don't).  to me, it's kind of like tossing me a book on programming and telling me to have a go at making it myself.  i'd *love* to make the tool but i do not have the expertise and gaining the expertise would require time that i do not have (trust me, this would take me a *long* time!).  :)  a lot of useful tools can be created using scripting languages but that does not mean that everyone should make his/her own tools (more people would benefit if someone who knew what they were doing took a crack at it).  anyway, in short, i guess i'm just dumb like that!  :P

i had always glazed over powerpro based on the ugly screenshots and website.  i thought it was some kind of skinnable toolbar.  anyway, thanks.  i would say this fits the bill for the "fitt's machine" (although it is not quite the simple small tool that i had in mind).  but it does *not* fill the role of the desktop manager (or whatever you want to call it) that i was talking about.  so let's spell out the requirements of such a program (and feel free to tell me if a similar program exists):

- creation of multiple desktops with a way of switching between them (nothing special here - any desktop manager would do)
- the option to have certain windows always open in a specific desktop
- individual taskbars (or other task management device) for each desktop
- some keyboard navigated windows to display useful shortcuts similar to the displays found in the screenshots here:
http://www.symphonyos.com/desktop.html
these windows would display things like drives, recent documents, favorite folders, program shortcuts, a music folder, etc.  technically, these windows could be a separate snack *or* (even better) you could give f&r the commandline option to launch a new instance that *only* displays the content with a specific search (no toolbar or search field).  that way, all these cool features would be found in f&r, it would save coding time, and it would allow people to have often used searches open all the time (which is obviously useful in instances like this).  it would be nice, however, if f&r had a view style that was bigger and more menu-like than details (again, reference the screenshots to get an idea of what i am talking about).  what does everyone think?

so did i just freak you guys out by mentioning multiple desktops?  this is just the method i thought would be the easiest to implement because i assumed program docking would be the most difficult feature.  anyway, it is not necessary and would be a more confusing paradigm for users to follow.  when i was rolling the idea around in my head, i just realized that fullscreen menus are kinda like transient desktops and i was hoping that desktop widget software (like konfabulator or anything similar) would work with them.  honestly any implementation would be fine as long as the core functionality would be the same.  so what are the thoughts on this project or "Fitt's machine"?