I guess that there is quite a long list of people asking to join the beta program – surely Anand here (founder of bumptop) will tell you more.

I recently updated to the latest beta version and I must say that they are doing a lot of improvments!

i’ve been trying to subscribe for the beta several times but i don’t get an invitation by email or whatsoever. Does anybody else have the same problem?

kinds regards

- the feeling of being in 3d space, with elements getting bigger and smaller depending on the distance is quite useful. I have the impression that I could organize better my files on my desktop. That doesn’t really solve what Sam pointed out but I think that it is a good improvment and a path to follow.

- the way this icons move and collide each other is pretty nice looking but it also gets easilly annoying. I want to have full control of what I am doing and i do not want things start moving around without my intention. There is a settings to disable the constant collision but still, too many things happen witout my will.

- the chance to draw shapes to select several icons is interesting.

- the post it are great. they can be improved of course, but as idea they are excellent: they are not intrusive and they actually works well.

- I haven’t really used any of the special sorting functions such as tiling the icons. I don’t feel it necessary so far – I guess it is something that you could find interesting and useful as soon you get confident with it. I almost ignored them honestly

- about the right click menu, I stick with what I said in the previous comments

Over all I think that the current version of BumpTop is still far from being a real alternative to “our desktops” but it has good margin to become important.
Obviously we are talking of the beta version of product that has never been released before, so I am sure that many small problems and annoying behaviour will be to adjusted soon.

I would definilty promote the 3d space and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this idea applyed to windows or osx one day.

To me to most difficult problem is sorting all this stuff out. How many pdfs, word docs, photos, and other docs do you have on your computer? And importantly where are they (network drive, cd, email attachment, hard disk folder somewhere)? What did you name them?

The way the right click gesture works is pretty cool: it is quick and you easy to learn.

However I think that some people will still prefer having the Explorer menu straight away – especially if you have to press it tons of time a day.

There are many consideration and is not easy.
Thinking out loud about this point:

- showing the bumptop menu on right click instead of the Explorer one looks much better, and besides, it gives continuity to the narration.

- in a touchscreen application it would work like a charme and I really wanna see it working on a tablet / iphone.

- both the “right-click and gesture downwards” and the “Ctrl+rightclick” are very good alternatives, but I hated when Apple forced me to press ctrl+click to see that menu.

- a pro user would be happe to be able to go to the preference panel and change that setting so that they can see the Explorer menu by default

- some users could get lost and never find the Explorer menu and might need some tips: when you see the 3 buttons “Grow”, “Shrink” and “More..”, you could think that pressing the “More” one you will find more of those kind of actions (“Extend”, “Cut”, “Dry”) and not the Explorer menu

I am starting getting more into BumpTop today, overall you have done a great job! Compliment to all the BumTop team!

It will be interesting to see people reactions in front of something so different – and at the same time much closer to what you could expect from a real desktop.

Also, if you right-click and gesture downwards, you’ll always get the Windows right-click menu right away! Same goes for any gesture on the menu!!

Good to hear that and thanks for you comment!
The drag and drop from the browser to the desktop is one of the many small features that I wouldn’t renounce to.

About the right click. Is good to have the alternative, I would let the user decide whether they prefer to see the Explorer context menu or the BumpTop menu on right click.
The other menu would be still available pressing Ctrl+rightclick. If that is easy to change the user could always decide to customize this action as they prefer.
(like it happen in skype where you can decide to start a call or to start a chat double-clicking on a name from your contact list)

Or maybe that option is already in there?