I have never shied away from being a fan of Windows 8 and I have never said it was a perfect OS.
In fact, I have labeled it a transitional OS on several occasions and it certainly has its own collection of things that bug me. I have chosen to work within the confines of the OS though as it was designed and that is one of the reasons I have never installed or supported replacement Start Menu programs that have come out since the release of Windows 8. Honestly, I find the Start Screen to be a great replacement for the old Start Menu and a much more interactive and informational one as well.
Now one of the areas that has limited my productivity on Windows 8 in a dual monitor setup is that you can only have two Modern Apps on screen at any given time and they have to be on the same monitor. You can not have two different modern apps open on two different monitors. In order for two modern apps to be open one must be snapped to one side of the screen taken up one-third of the screen real estate and the other taken up the remaining two-thirds.
As I have moved to using more modern apps for many of my daily activities this can become very limiting/annoying.
Well today Stardock has released a program called ModernMix that allows you to open Modern Apps windowed on Windows 8 instead of them having to take up the full screen or be snapped Windows 8 style.
Here is what my dual monitor setup screenshot looks like with three Modern Apps open at one time in separate windows:
 Three Modern Apps open on dual monitors in Windows 8. |
 Three Modern Apps open on dual monitors in Windows 8 with two displayed in the Windows 7 snap style. |
As you can see a lot of flexibility is possible using ModernMix. The program will remember how you open different Modern Apps and will open it back up in the same manner. You will also notice the Modern Apps appear on the Taskbar and yes they can be pinned to the taskbar for quick access. It even has an option to make full screen Modern Apps visible on the Taskbar so they can be pinned as well.
Currently the ModernMix software is a beta and you can download it for 30 days at no obligation or choose to go ahead and pay $4.99 for it now or at the end of the 30 days if it meets your needs.
The setup of the app is straight forward and provides a small overlay in the upper right corner of all apps so you can select windowed or full screen Modern App style use.
Here are screenshots of the program screens:
Set the default windows mode here.
This list starts off empty but will fill up as you use different Modern Apps and set their windows style. Unfortunately you can not modify screen settings here for windowed, full screen or maximized. The only option is to delete a specific Modern App or the entire list of Modern Apps.
About screen.
The Unlock/Purchase screen.
I am going to give this program a run for 30 days and see how it impacts my productivity on Windows 8.
So what do you think of this – any plans to give it a shot?
Source: Stardock ModernMix
