Backstep is a handy software tool that enables you to draw icons for minimized windows on your desktop. It provides a convenient way to organize your taskbar and streamline your workflow.
Backstep is a software program that specializes in drawing icons for minimized windows on your desktop. One of the biggest advantages of Backstep is that it doesn't depend on the window manager or on a desktop-drawing program, which allows it to be used across a range of systems, including Nautilus. It is built to be used with window managers that are EWHM compliant, and while it works well with Metacity and Xfwm4, it doesn't function correctly with Fluxbox and Kwin, although the developers are working on fixing the issue.
Drawing icons for minimized windows may seem like a step backwards to some people, but I find it incredibly useful to identify minimized windows through their position on my desktop rather than by name. This feature highlights Backstep as a top-notch software program with innovative UI capabilities.
Backstep is very simple to use and doesn't require any configuration. All it takes is a quick run of the 'backstep' program, and you'll be good to go! Backstep also offers session management support and adds itself to your sessions to ensure that it will automatically start the next time you log in to your desktop environment.
Another feature of Backstep is grouping. You can group windows together by right-clicking on their icons, selecting a group, and then any action taken on a window from the group shows or hides all the other windows in the group, effectively minimizing the time lost while trying to locate and open all the windows in a group. Finally, Backstep is also entirely customizable. You can adjust the icon's appearance through a simple configuration dialog that you can launch through right-clicking on an icon.
Backstep is built with the GTK+ toolkit and uses the GNU build system. It installs in the normal fashion, i.e., using ./configure && make && sudo make install.
The latest release of Backstep has resolved a bug that caused window managers such as Metacity to display an animation in the wrong place when the icon was shown for the first time. Additionally, all the icon frames will now appear the same size, ensuring that the interface feels consistent and intentional.
Drawing icons for minimized windows may seem like a step backwards to some people, but I find it incredibly useful to identify minimized windows through their position on my desktop rather than by name. This feature highlights Backstep as a top-notch software program with innovative UI capabilities.
Backstep is very simple to use and doesn't require any configuration. All it takes is a quick run of the 'backstep' program, and you'll be good to go! Backstep also offers session management support and adds itself to your sessions to ensure that it will automatically start the next time you log in to your desktop environment.
Another feature of Backstep is grouping. You can group windows together by right-clicking on their icons, selecting a group, and then any action taken on a window from the group shows or hides all the other windows in the group, effectively minimizing the time lost while trying to locate and open all the windows in a group. Finally, Backstep is also entirely customizable. You can adjust the icon's appearance through a simple configuration dialog that you can launch through right-clicking on an icon.
Backstep is built with the GTK+ toolkit and uses the GNU build system. It installs in the normal fashion, i.e., using ./configure && make && sudo make install.
The latest release of Backstep has resolved a bug that caused window managers such as Metacity to display an animation in the wrong place when the icon was shown for the first time. Additionally, all the icon frames will now appear the same size, ensuring that the interface feels consistent and intentional.
What's New
Version 0.3: N/A