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Scrolling desktop

Scrolling desktop
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(+5)
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I would like to have a large map as desktop background. If my shortcuts could be make disappear when I want to look my map, and it would allow me to scroll around the world and work as a extra space for shortcuts.
Thrust, Apr 22 2014

Infinite Screen - freeware http://ynea.futurew...at/cgi-bin/index.pl
haven't actually tried this myself... Let us know if this works for you. [scad mientist, Apr 22 2014]

[link]






       Easy. Take your computer and other stationary off of the top of your desk, unroll a large map, and then place the stuff back on top of the desk.   

       Probably best to get a little mat or board to cut onto, that will prevent cuts of any length disfiguring your map or your desk.
pocmloc, Apr 22 2014
  

       If you badly want it, I doubt it's something that will come to you while you wait. The Linux world is probably your only hope of such a thing, and all the big distros are moving to cellphones, while we wait for a less crappy interface to be invented. That means there's less work being done on desktops than previously.   

       So how could you improvise an adequate simulation? - How about virtual desktops? I don't think there's anything stopping you having nine of these, which is a nice number for obvious reasons. Here's the kludge:   

       1. Cut your map into 9 pieces. Put an ocean in the middle, where you have lots of icons. 2. Put the other pieces all around.   

       3. .. That's it, really. I'll skip the very most trivial of details.
skoomphemph, Apr 22 2014
  

       What they said.
blissmiss, Apr 22 2014
  

       [+] So you'll want a hotkey, that works when all the windows are minimized, to toggle the icons on and off and enter scrolling mode, and some map software. Sounds like a job for Google Earth/Moon/Mars.
FlyingToaster, Apr 22 2014
  

       Joining the advise given here you can unscrew the display panel pour some clear glue on the interior in the shape of the continents. Then pour water where the oceans go. I have no idea how to make it hide your shortcuts but hey this is the halfbakery.   

       </Deliberately misunderstanding comment> and + for enduring those.
pashute, Apr 22 2014
  

       If you had desktop icons that looked like map features they would blend in. You could have map labels in the same font as your icon labels. Then only you would know where the camouflages icons were. Anyone else trying to use your computer would be helpless! HELPLESS!
bungston, Apr 22 2014
  

       Like they aren't already :P
Spacecoyote, Apr 23 2014
  

       [bungston] , oddly enough, that's one of my favorite interface ideas for the eventual augmented reality human-computer-interface we're postponing by straying down this smartphone blind alley.   

       Your file system is integrated with the next generation of Google Earth, and you use the maps in both a literal and metaphoric way. So,for instance, your photos of the holiday in Thailand are on the imaginary reef offshore from Phuket (? never been there, so the geography might be wrong, here). Your physics notes are all kept at CERN. Your copy of your favourite Natsume Soseki novel is at a temple in Kyoto .. and so on.   

       I haven't posted it because the underlying technology doesn't exist, really.
skoomphemph, Apr 23 2014
  

       The only problem is that it is not falling-down easy to make icons look how you want them to look, and they tend to want to organize themselves in square ranks.   

       A map as desktop is easy. Scrolling around on it less easy. I am certain I would have trouble finding icons that had somehow wound up on Bouvet island and would wind up locating them in some other way.
bungston, Apr 23 2014
  

       Sorry, I didn't make it clear enough that my proposed spinning globe UI is iconless. You would simply define a convenient grid as a "hotspot" (and perhaps hyperlink a plethora of automatically generated such spots to honeypots for the kind of security you pointed out would become possible.)   

       Of course it's still possible to keep on losing things this way.   

       Choosing places for your executables might be more interesting than for your data. eg What country is a natural mnemonic home for word processor?
skoomphemph, Apr 23 2014
  

       Google maps has only one site: Word Processor near Sparks, Nevada.
bungston, Apr 23 2014
  

       So how on earth does that take me to the Honeypot B & B in Umhlanga Rocks?? -- Art thou a necromancer?   

       Pronunciation: "oom-llahnga" (as with the "ll" in Llanelly). If you can never manage "Llanelly", you'll have to make do with "oom-shlahnga". (Long a's, please. As in father. But say them fairly quickly.)
skoomphemph, Apr 23 2014
  

       why not just open google maps in full screen and toggle between your workspace and your computer.   

       If you want the last place you visited to be the background simply "save as bacground". Until your next visit to google maps.   

       Oh, and while looking at the map just pretend your looking at the giant map in the background.   

       Oh, say, can you see, I just saw now that I already posted on this in April this year.
pashute, Dec 04 2014
  
      
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