Desk & Archive

Desktop as todo list
Turn your desktop into your todo list. Having everything on your desktop makes it suboptimal in all its functions. Desk & Archive is the only file manager that offers separate tools for each type of item that you store on your desktop. Use Desk to create and track your unfinished documents, Launch bar for shortcuts to programs, pinned folders to Sidebar instead of shortcut to folders, and templates and bookmarks as tools for frequently used documents.

Time saving features
Desk & Archive respects your time with tabs to clean clutter from your taskbar, automatic opening and closing of tabs which takes these tasks away from you and increases availability of locations you might need, preview of items on item tile with active preview of folders which allows opening of its items directly from preview, smart sorting which chooses best sort type based on content, ad-hoc items lists which allow easy opening of several folders at once and looking through those folders to see all items in all subfolders, unobtrusive and problem solving notifications, easy multiple selection with checkboxes, improved interaction with both keyboard and mouse, and many more hidden gems.

No need to create reminders, and no way to forget

Items you have created that are not archived yet are your reminders, as simple as that. No more spending time to create reminders, which leads to even better, no more forgetting to create reminders.

Your Desk becomes your todo list. You can accommodate it to include all folders where you create files, and even to chose it to show only files in some of them without showing their sub-directories.

And when you complete work on item, moving it to Archive takes just one click. Advanced users can even specify that items from each Desk folder go into a different Archive folder.

Desktop items are where they should be
We can do some things to make your messy Windows desktop a little bit less messy. All your desktop shortcuts that launch programs are moved to Launch bar. And all your desktop shortcuts that open folders are moved to Sidebar. So, your Desk is cleaner from start as it contains only files and folders. And program and folder shortcuts from your Windows desktop have their own dedicated space in application window making them always available, no matter which folder is opened.

Tabs with zero effort

So many opened folders are occupying your valuable taskbar space (or it is so hard to switch between them in Windows 7)? You already know from internet browser that tabs are the best solution for that.

But these are not just ordinary tabs you got used to. If you are tired of opening new and closing old tabs and thinking in which tab to open what, Desk & Archive does that job for you. Whenever you do something unrelated new tab is opened. If it is not used for a long time, it gets into Old Tabs, and then if not used there, it is forgotten. And when you open program again, tabs are exactly as you left them. Just feel the magic of having all folders you might revisit again at the click of your mouse without actually doing anything.

Oh, and "History loss" is finally cured. When you go back and then open new content in tab, you got used to losing access to all your forward history. We have a cure for that - forward items are stored in a new tab, so you can access them easily.

And you can paste into a tab from its context menu, without opening it. Can't do that from taskbar, right?

Suggested Tabs
If you usually copy files from one folder to another, Desk & Archive will recognize that and show potential destinations in suggested tabs, so you don't have to navigate to and open such folder, but just chose Paste from context menu.

The right place to start new work

New menu is always available at the top of the window. It contains default files and each file you marked as template by clicking twice on its star indicator. If you don't want to save your work as a new document, you can hold Shift while clicking and only file for editing will be opened.

Every file has Edit as new file command available, so every file is potential easy template!

Smart Sort
When you open a folder which is not sorted the way it is easiest for you, you waste your time either by manually choosing a new sort type, or more often by trying to find file in that non-optimal view. Desk & Archive uses Smart Sort to analyze items and find the optimal sort type for each folder you open.

Libraries are on steroids as Items lists and available on XP and Vista
Windows 7 introduced Libraries. We wanted to make them a little bit more advanced by creating Items lists with more features, but also make them available on Windows XP and Vista. And on Windows 7 all your libraries will be available on Sidebar from very start.

Simple ad hoc Items lists

Select several folders and click Open. New ad hoc Items list is created to show all items from these folders. You can pin it to Sidebar if you want to use it later, or you can just continue work. The way it should be.

And the simplest way to create ad-hoc Items list - just click Look through, and Items list will show items from all subfolders.

Important items are always one click away

Every item can be bookmark. Isn't it more useful to bookmark files than to mark folder as favorite? And for really important folders (or Items lists), there is one more trick - you can pin them to sidebar, so they are always available.

But even if you've been busy and failed to bookmark something, if you use it really frequently, it will appear in Frequent items, and if you have used it recently, it will appear in Recent items.

Great previews
Seeing the image preview or the visual folder preview when hovering a mouse pointer over icon is a nice improvement, but what to say about being able to read first several lines of document, or even better, being able to see several last used files in folder as links, and even open them without opening folder?

Easy & smart search
Just start typing, and the search starts. Just click enter and first item opens. You can use this as efficient method for navigating folder tree. And if you type the folder or file path it will be recognized and opened.

Easy filtering by file types or groups of file types

You can filter by file type (extension), but also by groups of similar file types like Images, Videos, Music... In this latter case you can even remember filter as part of Items list.

Smart display of groups allows to keep them always visible

Most people feel how grouping files to those from 'today', 'yesterday', 'this week', etc. is useful, but most people also don't like how it is taking screen space and interrupts the flow of files. Now you can have both.

Program talks to you in less intrusive and more useful way
No more useless messages that requires you to click OK to continue your work. Now messages that require no user approval appear over less important part of the window, and if you don't want to take any action, you can ignore them until they automatically disappear. But now messages usually offer related action, and specially useful messages are those that reflect that some operation is completed with option to undo it, when it is available.

Simpler interaction
Rename is just one click away. And context menu is so clean. Yet hover mouse over it and it expands into system with powerful sub-options. That's how to be both simple and powerful.

You use only mouse? It's OK
You hate to move your hand to keyboard to use Ctrl + click, Shift + click, Ctrl + Home, Ctrl + End? No need to anymore - checkboxes are instead of Control + Click, try to drag them or hold click for Shift + click, and right click + mouse wheel = Ctrl + Home or Ctrl + End.

You use only keyboard? It's OK
All common shortcuts are available from start, so you should feel at your place. But somewhere we've gone step further - it wouldn't be fair that item tooltips are available only for those that use a mouse, right? Or to navigate through items and context menu with just arrows?

Improved visual feedback
Blink on opening the file, items blinking while moving or deleting them, separate indications for copied, cut and hidden files, tooltips which items are to be pasted and where, indicators when file size is above certain thresholds, indicator that file is executable to prevent spoofing as document, clickable indicators for containing folder in items lists that have more than one folder, and if those are of the same name showing parent folder... Nice for eyes, but even better that it puts you in a control.