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Last post Author Topic: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows  (Read 63951 times)

wreckedcarzz

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #50 on: September 24, 2007, 05:53 PM »
No, Flip3D most definitely have some usability issues. I wonder who at Microsoft figured it would be a good idea to display your open applications like a stack of photographs? It's not exactly the easiest way to do things, as you can't just scan over the screen with your eyes to locate the correct one. What I would recommend to anyone that want some of the convenience of a program like "Switcher 2" but doesn't want to install 3'rd party software, is to use this very nice tip from Cybernetnews and just increase the thumbsize of the regular alt+tab instead :)

I must concur! The AERO Win+Tab "Flip 3D" feature is very usable when I don't have Switcher2 open (or on other Vista AERO PC's). With the added "Cool!" effect of the person who owns the machine it is a fast way for me to work with 10+ windows at the same time. Just wish you could close them with it without having to see it first.

sri

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #51 on: September 25, 2007, 03:35 AM »
No, Flip3D most definitely have some usability issues. I wonder who at Microsoft figured it would be a good idea to display your open applications like a stack of photographs? It's not exactly the easiest way to do things, as you can't just scan over the screen with your eyes to locate the correct one. What I would recommend to anyone that want some of the convenience of a program like "Switcher 2" but doesn't want to install 3'rd party software, is to use this very nice tip from Cybernetnews and just increase the thumbsize of the regular alt+tab instead :)

I must concur! The AERO Win+Tab "Flip 3D" feature is very usable when I don't have Switcher2 open (or on other Vista AERO PC's). With the added "Cool!" effect of the person who owns the machine it is a fast way for me to work with 10+ windows at the same time. Just wish you could close them with it without having to see it first.

I use PowerPro to bring up a menu (upon pressing Ctrl) of open windows from which I can easily select a window to close. Easy and convenient.

Check this out: http://screencast.com/t/y9YwQrmlaqx
<a href="https://sridharkatakam.com">My blog</a>

f0dder

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #52 on: September 03, 2009, 02:51 AM »
Why didn't I search DonationCoder for "Windows Expose" before I did the google query? That could have pointed me to Switcher a bit quicker (oh boy, some of the expose clones are unstable rubbish). Especially that it's Vista-only and seems to "use Aero" rather than constantly doing polling screenshots is pretty sweet. And while it isn't 100% smooth on my laptop's Intel video chipset, it's smoother than some of the other clones, and enjoyable to use.

Imho expose goes beyond just eye-candy, it seems pretty darn useful when you have a whole bunch of applications open and need to switch beyond your last few used apps (which Alt+Tab handles OK). The (live) previews, combined with the AppIcon overlay, makes it pretty fast to locate the application you're interested in, and it's wonderful that Switcher is so keyboard-friendly.

As much as I hate to say it, Exposé is one of the nice features coming from Apple (but I wouldn't be surprised if they nicked the idea from some other place :)).
- carpe noctem

Darwin

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #53 on: September 03, 2009, 09:25 AM »
Thanks for reviving this thread, f0dder. I'm interested, but am wondering about the resource "hit" under Vista?

Darwin

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #54 on: September 03, 2009, 10:05 AM »
Forget it, f0dder-man - I got off my butt and installed it myself! So far, it's pretty good. Minimal CPU impact (NO CPU impact, really) and working set memory use is 44MB when idle and 59MB when "switching". This is under Vista 64-bit with 4GB RAM, a T9300 Core 2 Duo Core and with 512MB dedicated video memory.

PS just to note that memory use falls off/rises with the number of windows that you have open. I'm down to three windows (versus the five I had open earlier) and memory use has fallen off accordingly: 30MB idle and 42MB when "switching". Now I'm monitoring whether or not this creeps up over time. I'll report back in a few hours!
« Last Edit: September 03, 2009, 10:08 AM by Darwin »

f0dder

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #55 on: September 03, 2009, 10:11 AM »
Thanks for reviving this thread, f0dder. I'm interested, but am wondering about the resource "hit" under Vista?
My laptop runs Vista64, and it uses... dunno, ~20MB or so of private bytes. On my Win7-64 workstation (still running a post-RC beta, haven't upgraded to RTM from school's MSDNAA yet) it's weighing around the same (and running 100% smooth, thanks to the "somewhat more powerful" :P GPU) - around 10meg non-shared working set, that's not bad at all either.

As for CPU toll, I let a DivX movie play back in Windows Media Player on my laptop, and kept the System Information window from Process Explorer open as well. I couldn't tell the difference in the CPU usage chart from having the Switcher exposé mode running or not, even when flipping rapidly between windows in the F2 mode - testing now on my quadcore workstation, keeping Properties->Performance open and doing the same hits in at around 0% CPU usage for the Switcher process, and some hardly noticeable spikes on the procmon SysInfo CPU chart, as expected caused by the dwm.exe process. Those spikes were around 5% or so when doing "normal rapid" flipping, and up to 15% when keeping an arrow key pressed.

Haven't checked if dwm.exe memory consumption goes up when using switcher, but I expect it won't - it's already responsible for keeping the window content of the applications.

In other words: pretty negligible resource consumption. I should test if I get different memory consumption with varying number of open Windows - and it's worth testing the difference between Win7 and Vista as well, since Win7 (if running with a new WDDM driver (1.1 as opposed to Vista 1.0, iirc)) keeps windows on GPU memory rather than system memory.

PS: I expect that pre-Vista compatible exposé clones will be worse wrt. resource consumption - they need to basically take screenshots of all your open Windows in order to work, which takes some memory. And for "live" previews, they need to keep taking screenshots (the faster the "smoother") - this takes up CPU cycles.
- carpe noctem
« Last Edit: September 03, 2009, 10:18 AM by f0dder »

oxman

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #56 on: August 03, 2010, 08:04 AM »
Well unfortunately I can't running Switcher 2 on Seven because I use the theme "Windows Classic" so Aero is disabled :/

lanux128

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #57 on: February 16, 2011, 09:08 PM »
NECRO THREAD ALERT

does anyone have a copy of Switcher 2.0.0.2202 BETA? last known download site was here. if you have it, please post here or PM me. thanks..

f0dder

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #58 on: February 17, 2011, 04:25 AM »
Why do you need 2.0.0.2202 specifically?

The project is hosted here, and 2.0.0.2705 available.
- carpe noctem

lanux128

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #59 on: February 17, 2011, 05:20 AM »
i thought that (2.0.0.2202) was the last available version. it's cool though that there is a newer version. thanks for the link.. :up:

on another note, something is really wrong with google..

Mamoun

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #60 on: February 18, 2011, 09:22 PM »
Well unfortunately I can't running Switcher 2 on Seven because I use the theme "Windows Classic" so Aero is disabled :/
Same problem, I always wonder why the heck it needs Aero to support windows thumbnails. I can get my old laptop to make coffee using a linux distro but I can't have a simple thing like windows thumbnails in windows.

f0dder

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #61 on: February 19, 2011, 05:53 AM »
Well unfortunately I can't running Switcher 2 on Seven because I use the theme "Windows Classic" so Aero is disabled :/
Same problem, I always wonder why the heck it needs Aero to support windows thumbnails. I can get my old laptop to make coffee using a linux distro but I can't have a simple thing like windows thumbnails in windows.
Because Aero is more than a skin, it's all about gpu acceleration. Without Aero, a thing like Switcher is still possible, but you'd have to continually poll each and every window for updates, which not only would mean sloppy animation but also a lot of CPU consumption.
- carpe noctem

Hyphen

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #62 on: February 25, 2011, 03:40 AM »
Is there anything I can use to basically center (horizontally and vertically) a single window?

tomos

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #63 on: February 25, 2011, 04:01 AM »
Is there anything I can use to basically center (horizontally and vertically) a single window?

I use Tic Tac, forum thread here
See the last post on that page for info about a version without systray icon (TicTac lite) that's the one I use -
Download: http://www.favessoft.com/hotkeys.html
Both use Win Key and the numberpad with numlock ON

There's a mousecentric version as well that I havent used
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=23601.0
Tom

mark_ninan

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #64 on: February 28, 2011, 04:29 AM »
Hi guys... been looking for Expose like clones for windows for ages. (Using Win 7x64) The best one that i've found and am still using is called WinExpose.
It works great and i launch it with my startups with Startup Delayer.
The only flaw is that the shortcut key function doesn't work. Other than that you can program it launch the expose-like function at the 4 corners of your screen.
Enjoy.

f0dder

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #65 on: February 28, 2011, 05:00 AM »
WinExposé is slow compared to switcher2, since it relies on constant polling of the application windows, whereas switcher2 depends on Vista+ Aero to be 100% smooth.

Iirc WinExposé is also relatively unstable, but it's been a while since I tested it (apart from running it just now, to verify it indeeds does the screengrabbing). Also, it seems unsupported by the author?, at least the official download link doesn't work and you have to resort to 3rd party download hosting sites.
- carpe noctem

Darwin

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #66 on: February 28, 2011, 08:52 AM »
If you have a microsoft mouse (I have one but am not currently using it - it's in the 6000 wireless series), the software adds a VERY Expose-like switcher to Windows 7 and Vista (can't speak to earlier versions of windows. I might reinstall the mouse and its software (though I don't really want to add more software to my setup) as the HP wireless mouse I am using eats batteries like CRAZY, whereas the MS mouse has awesome powersaving features that mean that I get months out of a set. If I do this, I'll report back with screenshots.

Darwin

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #67 on: February 28, 2011, 09:13 AM »
Here's a screenshot:

IP Instant Viewer.pngSwitcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows

It's called "Instant Viewer" and the tiles are "Live" - I watched Outlook's startup dialogue scrolling from within it...

I've never really explored instant viewer too much, so am not 100% sure that you need to install IntelliPoint to use it.

YMMV

f0dder

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #68 on: February 28, 2011, 09:25 AM »
It's called "Instant Viewer" and the tiles are "Live" - I watched Outlook's startup dialogue scrolling from within it...
How live, though? The test is playing back a video and determining whether the preview is 100% smooth, and without a noticeable increase in CPU usage.
- carpe noctem

Lashiec

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #69 on: February 28, 2011, 10:17 AM »
Dexpot included an Exposé-like function with live previews in the newer versions (1.5 and up). It has a truckload of other different features, but IIRC they can be disabled, so use whichever you like the most.

Darwin

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Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows
« Reply #70 on: February 28, 2011, 09:16 PM »
It's called "Instant Viewer" and the tiles are "Live" - I watched Outlook's startup dialogue scrolling from within it...
How live, though? The test is playing back a video and determining whether the preview is 100% smooth, and without a noticeable increase in CPU usage.

dlhost.exe uses a fair amount of CPU (@30% on a dual-core setup) when there is video playing back, but the playback is perfectly smooth. I guess instant viewer uses the same windows components as win-tab because the playback is the same.


EDIT: clarity
« Last Edit: February 28, 2011, 10:38 PM by Darwin »