BumpTop is an alternative desktop that aims at adding functionality and fun to the Windows experience. While it succeeds on many levels, I won't be using it on my workhorse PC.
We spend so much time looking at our computers that the desire to customize their look and feel is natural. Some do it with a change in wallpaper, others do complete overhauls using programs like Stardock's WindowBlinds. Too often, however, while curing our terminal ennui, these alternatives create new problems...introducing complexity and incompatibility.
BumpTop uses a number of metaphors to get its job done: Instead of just a desktop, you now have a 3D rotatable "room" with walls, as well as a "floor". Your folders, files, and other specialty widgets can stick on the walls, giving you different spaces in which to organize your stuff. Want to put something into an email, facebook, or twitter? Just "throw" it onto the special icons that BumpTop provides.
Special widgets also improve on the standard desktop: Sticky yellow post-its can be created and tossed anywhere. There are photo frames that will run slide shows. A number of themed backgrounds are also available for download.
Right clicking on an icon on the desktop brings up a circular menu that lets you grow or shrink the size of an icon, or (with an additional click) bring up the standard right click context menu. For me, the ability to grow or shrink an icon was not as significant a gain as the cost of adding an extra click each time I wanted to get to the context menu.
Perhaps BumpTop's best feature is the ability to create "stacks" of icons or files, by simply selecting them with a lasso.
The 3D interface is what gives BumpTop its "cool". The entire interface can rotate. Files and icons can be "thrown" around the room; they will even stick to the walls. The more frequently used objects will grow in size over time, theoretically making them easier to find.
Of course to get all this 3D goodness onto the same space as your 2D desktop, items on the desktop recede in perspective, resulting in what for me was a more cramped, harder to read interface. And, I didn't really take to the "throwing" around of icons. My life is already messy enough, thank you. Turns out I like the little bit of order that the standard desktop brings to my life with its rows and columns. One of the things you lose when using BumpTop is the "arange icons" function to neaten up your desktop.
The 3D desktop also wasn't as good at displaying my wallpapers and photos as standard XP or Vista, again running afoul of the perspectives employed to render the virtual walls. Finally, I ran into compatibility problems with other utilities that I rely on heavily such as Stardock's Object Dock: activating the ObjectDock often causes Bumptop to revert to the original desktop on the bottom or top of the screen. The situation clears up after you unhover from ObjectDock, but it pulls back the curtain a bit too much on the illusion BumpTop is trying to create.
Ultimately, the features that BumpTop offers are not valuable enough to warrant its flaws. I found that it got in the way of what I wanted to do, instead of making it consistently easier. The good news is that you can try it out for free. If you like the interface you can upgrade to a few more features for a relatively low $29.
