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I want to ALT-TAB between ALL apps

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rjbull:
PowerPro has tray support, though I haven't tried it yet.  And PowerPro is apt to mean serious commitment...

nontroppo:
Hm, I regularly use Dexpot on XP, and while it is about the best thing I've tried on Windows there are a few annoying buglets.

What I didn't realise though is Dexpot indeed has an Exposé mode, which is named "Window catalogue". And it has a full-screen preview as Spaces does. So it is indeed along the same lines. But in terms of "workflow", it is still not really close. First off, spaces+exposé work together. So you can exposé while you are previewing all desktops. Desktops are live, video keeps playing, and you can *very* quickly organise your open windows. You can drag windows from desktop to desktop.

To manage windows in Dexpot you can only use the Desktop panel, little "pictures" of the desktop where you an drag the window representations around. The Exposé mode is not live, and it cannot work in Desktop Preview mode. I'm not sure why but sometimes the exposé-alike fails to trigger, leaving you pressing the hotkey again or fumbling with the mouse. It is all a bit klunky, but it comes as close as you'll get sans dongle...

Here is a screencast of all of this working together. First I show spaces, then spaces and exposé integration, then Dexpot preview manager, the exposé-alike and the full-screen preview at work in Windows:

http://nontroppo.org/test/spaces_and_dexpot.mov

Lashiec:
Is there something PowerPro can't do? :)

I think Dexpot could be good enough for me. I don't really have many windows open at a time, but sometimes it's nice to have another taskbar (or 19 in this case ;D). Besides, I guess the workflow is much better than with Windows default Alt-Tab

Well, I suppose live previews are only possible under Vista, thanks to the new video system. But the program development seems to have stopped for now. Or maybe they're rehashing completely the program to fully support Vista.

Thanks for the video, I'll take a look at it.

Armando:
I tried dexpot and I have to agree with what nontroppo said, it's good, but I'd insist on the clunky adjective. It just lacks the grace of leopard or Compiz Fusion (Linux)... Oh well... ([off topic]in terms of smooth desktop animations, Windows XP is doomed. Even Vista's special alt tab effect is clunky if you don't have a video card of the year (in comparison, compiz effects are perfectly smooth on my almost 2 year old inspiron[/off topic]).

nontroppo:
Dexpot is klunky, but only because XP itself has klunky UI drawing. I've never understood quite why Apple can do smooth fluid UI on old hardware with such a tiny CPU hit, whereas XP on Beefy machines stutters UI drawing? And indeed Compiz flows on the identical machine XP klunks on (a freind gee-wizzed me with his Ubuntu, *very* silky smooth and sexy). Yet as XP is the gaming platform of choice the graphics drivers have to be more optimised. I read somewhere that XP does use hardware when drawing, so it is not only a hardware vs. software distinction, but XP doesn't/can't composite in hardware? Vista does, so I don't get why it uses so many more resources than Quartz/Compiz...

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