Thanks to Eric J in the comments above - if you’re running XP I can highly recommend SmartTab - free, fast, efficient and great usability. Another reason not to upgrade to Vista yet!
“it seems a little unfair to compare the Flip3D feature to Expose”
Not when they have the same purpose, and Expose does it so much better and also happens to be older.
I wonder if anyone has made a flip3d compiz fusion plugin yet…
I do like scale and ring switcher though… pretty nice.
Of course people will like vista-- they did a lot of catching up in the userland… hmm… do you still have to put up with fragmenting on your hard drives?
Another switching tip is to use AutoHotKey. For the geeks out there, you can define your own keyboard shortcuts macros to minimize/maximize.
For example, ctrl+alt+e opens emacs (or maximizes if open). ctrl+alt+f opens firefox (or maximizes if open). It’s pretty “fun” switching between apps using the keyboard.
Anyway, the script looks something like this:
; emacs
^!e::
If WinExist(“emacs@YOUR_COMPUTER”){
WinActivate
WinMaximize
}
else{
Run C:\tools\emacs\emacs-21.3\bin\runemacs.exe
WinMaximize
}
return
This cracks me up. Mac had Expose since 2003 and Apple is about to raise the bar again with virtual desktops (I know there’s Virtue Desktops, but window management in it is awkward at best). I guess it’ll take Microsoft another four years to screw up their rip-off again, and another year for “community” to come up with a lame ass “me too” implementation.
I’ve not found a great “switcher” for Windows XP, but I did manage to find a great Virtual Desktop application for Windows XP.
It’s called Dexpot. It is by far the best virtual desktop application that I’ve found outside of a linux environment.
In defense of Flip3D, (and here I’m going to be standing alone on one side of a very long line) I find it invaluable on my tablet PC.
The screen isn’t large enough (in portrait orientation) to make use of Alt+Tab, and an expose like system would have a similar problem.
However with Flip3D (assigned to a pen flick, one of the best new vista features) I can skip through my open windows using the pen and a few simple gestures without having to trawl around on the taskbar (which also has size problems with running in portrait mode), or (heaven forbid) switch back to notebook mode.
So there’s the other side of the story, feel free to ridicule or ignore me, I know better than to try to change a geek’s mind once it’s been made.
Jeff have you used/seen Beryl/Compiz desktop effects on Linux? Seeing that, Vista stuff is pretty … ermm… “crap”, to be very polite (for paying $300 for just that !!! - No actually your not just paying $300 for that, you need to upgrade your system as well and all that. Beryl/Compiz runs “smooothly” on my pentium 4 1.7Ghz with a stupid integrated intel graphics 64mb, with 512 mb of 266mhz ram. Any more incentive i should go to vista?)
I recently shifted my work and usage from XP sp2 to Fedora core 6. Vista looked good, but it was a complete turnoff knowing ill have to upgrade my PC to get atleast a “little” taste of its power. (heck it doesnt even recongnize my iPod shuffle as a USB by default… wt*)! … SP1 and all that, yeah right. I’m betting on the fact that MS is already ready for an SP2 as well. Microsoft is getting real desperate to keep up with everything. They promise more stuff, they deliver lesser than the required features. (compare the number of utilities that come with Vista and that come with any distribution of Linux. And that too useful utilities. notepad/paint/IE… HELLO WORLD!!! WAKE UP!!! $300 for thattttt???)
Just see how desperate they are with channel9 and all that stuff telling people “how cool” their tech is. Visual studio 2008 is on its way, and people expected lots n lots of native c/c++ code support because there is a huge market of that (regardless of how much MS brags about .Net everywhere). Sumo (Lead at Developer Division) says we’ll give you all that in Orcas+1… around 2009?. I mean, WHY DO THEY THINK WE’LL STICK TO THEM TILL THEN? they are just being arrogant now knowing that they have a user base that will not switch to anywhere else and they can drive them however they want.
My suggestion to anyone who reads this, lets not make MS feel like GOD of Software on this earth. Give Open Source a try, with a little understanding and tolerance and open mindedness, you’ll find that there is a lot bigger and better world out there.
Flip3D - Not entirely bad.
Like most people here, when I first saw this feature I had similar thoughts: “that’s kinda hard to use… and ineffective”. But the rational side of me asks… why? Ok, it looks cool to some people. But wait… perhaps there is a more useful purpose to it?
How many times have you heard something like: “I was working on my Word document, and then I opened the Internet and it deleted what I was working on…” (What happened? Internet Explorer opened up and maximized on top of the other windows). This sort of confusion still happens a lot. I’m thinking of people in my mum’s generation.
Flip3D illustrates the layered windowing concept very concisely. And for a lot of people over the age of 50 and under the age of 7, believe it or not, layered windows can still be really confusing.
Cheers
Why so much talk about switchers these days? Flip3D, Bao’s Switcher, Desktop Cube… Are users that entrenched with how to move from one application to another? I use Mac, Windows Kubuntu interfaces in their plain-simple default behaviour. While I like the visual candy that Kubuntu’s DesktopCube Mac’s Expose offer, I certainly focus on the task at hand; my job! Is this the next time-waster at work?
If I have to make suggestion; it would be that desktop layout manager be created that function on the primary monitor only. Using multiple monitors, I like debug windows, runtime windows development windows on separate monitors. I would like to be able to have multiple desktops on my main monitor only. Most layout managers have pinning or window management; but that is weak.
Oh well. Until then UltraMon it is!
Bit late the the party, but for the sake of posterity this thread needs an additional mention of virtual desktops. Their utility simply can’t be overstated.
If you were still wondering what to do with the forward/back buttons on your MS Natural 4k keyboard, this is your answer. If you want even more fun, give yourself a desktop grid, and bind up/down to the side buttons on your mouse (and if you don’t have those then consider a new mouse).
Personally I run a 8x3 grid of desktops, each at 3200x1200. Obviously do not use all 24 desktops in this configuration, but it allows me to order tasks in a consistent manner. Each given task gets a central desktop, and then supporting material for those tasks go on the desktops surrounding that core task.
This proves a consistent way to access associated sub-tasks of any primary activity. For example, writing code:
-
Source editor gets a desktop entirely to itself, full screen.
-
Documentation is always on the desktop “above” and so may always be reached with one button press on my mouse. Always.
-
Build and debugging environment is one desktop below the source editor. Going from debugging to code is, once again, exactly one button press. Additionally, because my desktops wrap, it is also exactly one button press away from docs.
This is of course only one example, many people may prefer to more tightly intermingle their sub-tasks. In either case however, virtual desktops provide a deterministic method of accessing known window sets. There is no searching through a list, no rummaging around on the taskbar, and as nice as the zooming metaphor is, it still requires hunting through a list.
If you don’t currently use virtual desktops, give them a try. Personally I’m using the implementation included in Beryl on Linux, but I know that there exist various implementations for both Windows and OSX.
These types of Microsoft bashing rarely end in anything constructive. The truth is Vista is much more than Flip3D and they were targeting an experience with Flip3D where a user can get a quick glance of windows as they were moving between open windows, not a detail look at everything on the windows (though is does continue to update the windows that are displayed in the Flip3D interface). I look at this product as a additional way to use ALT-TAB with a bigger preview of the window.
I tried flipper. It’s astonishingly choppy with a GF7600Go; then again, Flip3D with a lot of windows open is slow as well. I would have to give the “most useful 3D desktop” award to Compiz Fusion on Linux. The effects are smooth and if you take it down below the “Haha, look my Windows are made out of Jello” level to just minimize close etc effects (simple ones like fade or zoom), scale (Expos’e), and the Expo view, it becomes very useful and it runs very quickly. Shame it’s so buggy… It’s getting better, but with non-open source drivers there are still a few strange glitches…
Sorry, when I said “Flipper” I meant “Switcher”. Don’t know how I transposed Flip3D and Switcher, but I did.
The thing I like about Flip3D over Expose is that I can just scroll through a single dimensional stack of windows and find the one I have, while Expose is two dimensional, making it difficult for me to scan through all the open windows and pick the one I want, especially if there are a lot of windows.
I think Compiz Fusion would have deserved an honorable mention in the article. It works great on just an average graphics card, and for a long time you have been able to do everything that is mentioned above.
Even Flip3d.
Ok, I have to admit not having read all comments now, but some are just ridiculous. You don’t need to do OCR on the windows or code Firefox extensions that write all tabs to a text file just to make them searchable from Switcher. There is a magic thing called Accessibility APIs. You know, the stuff that speech recognition uses to give meaningful results when you say something that’s on the screen (which includes menus, links on web pages and the like).
So probably all information is already present, Switcher only needs to tap into that and use it. Although prioritizing might be a bit difficult. Certainly a window title should have more weight than a single word buried in some web page opened in a browser. But essentially it may be possible with what Vista gives us already.
One thing I surprised with expose, is it’s ability to randomize the windows placement. Even with 2 duplicate finders (same dimension) + 1 other window, the expose placement will be different on every active window prior your expose.