VistaGlance: What? How? Why? Where? Who? When? User comments
What?
Hundred times a day you run programs, open files or search for some information in your PC. You loose up to 50% of working and spare time in "folder plays"! What do you do when you want to open a file or run a program you need? In most cases, you walk through numerous folders and subfolders or wander about countless items in Start menu. Do you remember such situations when you have even forgotten what you need while searching for the necessary file in the thorny tree of your file system? This is a bad side of Explorer. Explorer can solve only one problem: it helps you to examine the contents of some folder you do not know about. But users rarely need this. Almost each time we open Explorer, or Start menu, or some Norton Commander-like program we want to open some document or run some program we know about. We know its name, or its category, or some part of its name... Well, how often do you run programs which names you do not even know?
Explorer - is a big illusion indeed. We spend our time seeking for files that we already imagine, perceive, remember, know... Why should we tell computer a such illusory thing like "file path"? With VistaGlance you will not "play with folders" anymore. You will do what you want and get what you want as soon as you think about it. It is simply a new kind of interface, more powerful, easier and faster than all you have seen before...
"On the third day of using VistaGlance I noticed that it is faster to enter several first letters of the program I need to run into VistaGlance Deskbar than to minimize all windows on the screen and double-click on the desktop icon of that program. That was an amazing feeling!"
Michael Malkov
How?
Suppose you want to open some document. Of course, you know its name or some part of name, or something about its category or keywords. You simply type this little piece of information (often this is not more than several letters - and it takes less than a second to enter it) you know about this file or program into a small field in your taskbar, or in Explorer toolbar, or in Floating Bar and press Enter. May be you do not even guess where this file could be. It is up to computer to figure it out. Less than in a second you get exactly the very thing you need. Maybe there are thousands of files with similar names but you always see exactly what you need. It sounds like a science fiction. However, this is reality. The name of this reality is VistaGlance.
Do you still want to spend up to 30 percent of working hours on tiresome browsing for the necessary files and programs? When you try VistaGlance, you will see that there are more pleasant ways to spend this time rather than to play with folders.
"VistaGlance not only doubled my speed of working with Office documents and running programs but totally changed my way of thinking. Recently I thought that all these windows, icons and buttons is the simplest and fastest kind of interface among all possible ones. But now I understand that intellectual command line with search capabilities like VistaGlance is something that we are going to use in 21 century. And it is really easy and handy!"
Alex Udodov
Why?
It is so natural to access files and programs by their names and don’t ever think about their placement. Present-day operating systems make people ask “Where?” rather than “What?” when we want to open or run something. However, file system or Start menu is not like your street or native town - there are much less reference points. One folder is very similar to other folders; one submenu is like many other submenus. There are no differing details that human’s eye can catch and memory can keep. It is not surprising that even people who have been working with computer for many years can’t remember, where they placed the file they’ve just downloaded or where they saved a very important document yesterday or where some program is situated. Standard search techniques can do nothing with it. They are annoyingly slow and just perform a silly search while we need a clever tool to instantly access files we need. VistaGlance is the kind of tool we need.
"It is always difficult for us to use something new. We are always skeptical of technologies that raise our living to the higher quality level, get rid of our problems... The root of problem is in our habits. When people are to choose between something unhandy but well-known and something handy, but new, unidentified, they often choose the first one. It is a big challenge for us to choose the second one, overcome this threshold of recognition and at last get all the benefits new technology or way of thinking carries. When I first saw VistaGlance, I thought about it just like about an extremely fast file searching utility. However, I was excited by the author's concept of not browsing or searching for files but simply getting, accessing them by the information we already know. It came out that Explorer was a big brake in my computer-related life. With VistaGlance I now work with my files and programs at the lightning speed."
Andrey Yeriomin
Where?
Download VistaGlance here for free. VistaGlance is a totally free software. Feel free to write your questions, comments and suggestions to konstantin@vistaglance.com. Want to know more? You can view the screenshots of VistaGlance here and a brief tutorial, which will perfectly show you the abilities of VistaGlance in case if you are still not sure whether to download it or not, here. At last, here is a complete list of program's features.Just give it a try and this program will become your constant and reliable friend for ages.
Who?
The author of VistaGlance is Konstantin Artemev, a Russian programmer. He is also the leader of QwertyStudios. Founded in 2002, QwertyStudios mainly concentrates on developing new methods of computer human interaction and conducts researches in this area. Our ultimate mission is to turn computer into powerful and smart tool. Let’s disprove a saying that computer can solve only problems that hadn’t existed before its invention together!
When?
The idea of the program like VistaGlance born in February, 2005. I just read a wonderful book "The Humane Interface" by Jef Raskin which striked my imagination. I suppose it just changed my way of thinking in the area of computer-human interfaces. A few days later I stumbled across "The Anti-Mac Interface" by Don Gentner and Jakob Nielsen. It is not a book but a rather small article but it contains a lot of fresh and nonstandard thoughts about the modern computer human-oriented interfaces. Like many people who came into computer world not directly from Windows but from DOS and command prompt, I understood that command line is the one of the fasted kinds of interface. All these icons, windows, shortcuts and other flashy stuff can't give user such speed of work. However, I also realized that command-line interfaces are hard to learn, difficult to understand and simply unattractive for novice users.
The idea of combining best sides of command-line and graphical interfaces soar hovered somewhere in the air. Both "The Humane Interface" and "The Anti-Mac Interface" gave me a lot of ideas of how it could be done. Several months of coding passed and I released SunGlance - a powerful index-based searching utility. I tried to tell people that this is not only a search utility like Windows Search but a completely new way of accessing and manipulating files. My friends understood me. The least World - no. So I sat down and start thinking of what was wrong with this concept. In October, 2005 I grabbed all improvement ideas and started working. In February, 2006, in a year after VistaGlance firstly came to the World, I released SunGlance - my second attempt to give people a new power of human-oriented command line. Well, I haven't implemented all my of ideas yet. This is still a handy file searching tool and not the intellectual command line as it should be. But I add new features daily and one day you'll see VistaGlance becoming the most powerful and easy to use computer interface you ever met. The final step is an independent OS that implements Raskin's, and Nielsen's, and my own ideas on computer-human interaction. But this will be in future, maybe not as near as I'd like to. We need your help! Please leave your comments on this topic in our forum or write me: konstantin@vistaglance.com
Read users' testimonials
Press-release
Article about fast file access and local search
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Screenshots
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System Requirements
Platform: Windows98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003
32MB RAM, Pentium 2 266 MHz, 20 or more MB Hard Disk
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FAQ
Q: What is indexing?
A: Indexing is a process, when VistaGlance obtains information about files and folder in your system. It is very important for VistaGlance to have the latest information about your file system. In this case, VistaGlance will find exactly what you need. VistaGlance uses several indexing techniques. Here they are:
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Automatic indexing |
| Background reindexing |
| Manual indexing |
| Removable drives indexing |
Q: What is Automatic indexing?
A: Normally, when you perform some changes in the file system (copy, move, delete or rename files and folders), VistaGlance recognizes this fact in a trice. Therefore, you can query newly added or modified files or folders and the program will show them. This is Automatic indexing.
Q: What is Background reindexing?
A: Theoretically, Automatic indexing feature catches all changes in the file system. However, if VistaGlance is not run, it cannot use automatic indexing. For this purpose, VistaGlance reindexes you hard disk in background from time to time. A default period of such reindexing is one week. Normally, you may not ever notice that VistaGlance reindexes your hard disk because it performs this operation silently. You can use VistaGlance during such reindexing as usual.
Q: What is Manual indexing?
A: VistaGlance automatically shows Indexing Wizard at the first run. When it has indexed your hard disk, you need not run it again anymore. However, in some cases (change of hard disk, problems with database, etc.) you may want VistaGlance to reindex all your hard disks once again. This is Manual indexing.
Q: What is Removable drives indexing?
A: By default, VistaGlance automatically indexes removable drives (CD/DVD disks, USB-drives, etc.) when you insert them and "forgets" this information when you remove them. Such indexing is rather quick (usually not more than several seconds) and is performed in background. However, you can turn this feature off from the VistaGlance's main menu.
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Contacts and feedback
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