Kaishi

Matias: I've been working on a version of my icons with a white border for you. I haven't quite finished them as I've been really busy with other things, but I'll try to get them up this week. I wanted to ask you, do you think it would be possible to implement something to prevent WinExpose from activating whenever something Fullscreen was up ? Bumping a corner is a nightmare when in a game. Maybe using an OpenGL / D3D detection engine ? This wouldn't help for fullscreen DVD or video playback but then, I suppose the user shouldn't be hitting keys on their keyboard or moving their mouse if they're watching a film fullscreen. Still, something to consider.

Thanks for all the translating work, guys. I'm really pleased to see the app coming together so nicely.

Matias: I can make you versions of that logo at *any* resolution you want with the alpha perfected. Just lemme know what versions you want and I'll create them. EDIT: Okay, I made versions of the Logo at 128, 64, 48, 32, 24, and 16 squared. For the 24 and 16 versions, I removed the Drop Shadow. I also realized that at such small sizes, making the icon a solid color might be easier, so I created pure black versions at 24 and 16. I may go back and do a white outline around the black just to make it stand out a little more but I was trying to keep it easy for you. I've attached a .ZIP of all the files. I can make anything you'd like though, and am more than willing to do so. This stuff is exciting to me. Love the new corners menu, Matias. Great job there. Also, I like the customization, but I think that for the Minimized Window Transparency, you flipped the Opaque and Transparent ends of the Slider. I played around with it and having it fully to the "Opaque" side makes it fully transparent, and vice versa. Amazing stuff though man. If you need any more help, artwork, suggestions, or anything else, please, don't hesitate to drop me an Instant Message. I posted my Screennames on the last page of the thread but I'll put them up again: AIM: pandages YIM: dj_kaishi Jabber (or GoogleTalk): kaishi.axon@gmail.com Also, please feel free to use a version of the Logo as the Icon for your WinExpose page. It might make the site feel a little more related to the project. For that matter, if you're looking for any artwork in general, I might be able to help you out. For samples of my work, you're welcome to look at my DeviantArt page: http://gigas-vii.deviantart.com/ winexpose.zip

I noticed that the site is down too. I have a copy of the most recent release but I don't have any hosting. Everything okay, Matias ? We haven't heard from you in a while.

Interestingly, TaskSwitchXP also cannot capture or render anything regarding OpenOffice, so I am willing to assume this problem isn't one that Matias can really try to work around. Matias, have you considered an exclusion system similar to that of which is implemented by TaskSwitchXP ? It uses a system to ignore an app from previews (and instead displays only the systemtray icon for the app), or to alternatively ignore the app entirely. I think this might end up being a simple way to work around apps that cannot create previews but still should show up on the WinExpose screen.

On the OpenOffice issue, I know that Azureus uses the SWT graphical library for Java, and it renders just fine in WinExpose, yet OpenOffice doesn't. In this way, we can rule out SWT (and probably java, honestly). I'm going to check it against a few other Java apps I have to see if maybe there is something I'm overlooking.

Matias: sorry for being away for a few days, didn't have 'net access this weekend. I'm back now though. Of course you can use my icons. I'll gladly create versions at any size you like. The PNGs I posted do have Alpha data already but I can convert them into any other format you like or make a version that won't need alpha either. Whatever works best for you. If you want to contact me directly, IM me ! AIM: pandages, YIM: dj_kaishi, jabber: kaishi.axon(at)gmail.com EDIT: I've experienced the same OpenOffice bug too, always comes up as a pure black window. Gaim does the same thing but Gaim uses GTK+, OpenOffice doesn't. I'm not sure what OpenOffice *does* use though (I hope not SWT but I'm not sure of that either). Could anyone look into this ? If we can figure out how it works, Matias might be able to add support somehow.

Guys, please do read the thread before making feature requests ! Matias has posted several times saying what he is and isn't able to implement. The same To-Do list is on his website. C'mon, use your eyes a little before asking things. Because of the way the WinExpose's engine is coded currently, a "hide all windows" aka "show desktop" mode is not going to be possible. Period. Matias has tried to implement a "show all windows from this app" system but it isn't reliable currently. It is, however, on the to-do list, so it'll probably happen. Hovering window titles over the exposed windows is on the list as well. Guys, remember, Matias is working his best on this application in between work and school. He isn't a full-time developer, and yet, his app is incredible, so please, give him the benefit of the doubt. Matias has created a great, full usable application in under 2 months, that's pretty impressive for something like this. Matias: on your side man, always. Hell, I'd go so far as to call myself a fan.

Matias: did you see my artwork I did on the previous page ? I was curious what you thought of it, if you liked it or not.

Matias has said he's going to make all the transparency levels variable via options soon, he's working on it. I agree though.

My Mockup for the Corner Configuration. If you like it, or have some thoughts, I'm willing to make that into something you could use in your app.

Matias: Logo Variant 1 Logo Variant 2 This is my idea for the logo. I have an ultra-high-resolution version of this, and I'm still tweaking the logo a bit, but I wanted to show this to you in the current state.

Not to try to Resurrect a dead thread (thread-necromancy), but, there has been a new release of Snarl, and the changes are pretty huge. Snarl R1.6 (beta) - This is a Beta. It's therefore not fully tested and parts may be incomplete - It uses a new release of our 'melon' toolkit. This will be installed during the Snarl installation (you'll be prompted), however testing has shown sometimes problems occur with the melon installation (let me know if this happens to you) - You will need adminstrator rights to install Snarl but not to run it (let me know if this is not the case) - The SnarlClock and SnarlTray extensions are particularly new and therefore the least tested. - The SnarlClock extension should show a Snarl message on the hour - The SnarlTray extension should pipe SysTray balloons to Snarl - The 'Alerts' list box is not yet fully operational

Matias: no crashes here either upon a lock. Great job on that one !

Smiff: WinExpose crash related to logging off and/or going into Standby is a known issue currently, Matias has said he's working on fixing that. To help him, you can post your WinExpose Log file right after a crash (just copy the contents and paste into the thread). alchemist612: to use the exclusion list, go into the app's settings, and add either: 1) the Title Text of the window you want to exclude, 2) the name of the executable (winamp.exe, swriter.exe, etc.), or 3) a partial name including a wildcard (*) (Winamp *, Gaim *). Anything added to the list will not be shown on the Expose list. Very simple, and a good solution to the problem. ljubo666: Floating captions for the windows are in the works, so say Matias, the developer. To be truly Expose-like, they won't be optional, they'll be always on, and very easy on the eyes. Before that gets worked out though, Matias seems quite content doing bug resolution, which is a good plan. It's always better to work out existing problems than to implement new functions which may add more problems and make the initial attempts at fixing problems much more difficult. travelfox: a timer isn't a bad idea at all actually, I could see that being very beneficial. Personally though, I'd really like to see the value have a slider or input box, because for me, 30 seconds would be far too long. For others, 30 seconds might not be long enough. I'd vote for an input box, with either 0 or -1 being interpreted as "no timer". Matias: I'm back home now, going to get to work on some new artwork for your project. You've done really well so far, I can't wait until the next release.

robby007: you can tweak the expose time yourself in the options. Play with it, I like it set almost all the way to the Right, much much faster. jlee: RK Launcher's minimize mode is known to be pretty buggy, I don't know that WinExpose can do much to work on that without implementing RK Launcher-specific code, which I'd hardly call a bugfix. Hell, I'm an RK Launcher user myself but I don't trust the way it handles minimize, so I keep a visible taskbar to handle my apps, up at the top. Still, it isn't a bad thing for Matias to check it, maybe it *is* something he can work on.

Sranshaft: agreed on the "different expose modes" function, those are really nice to have. They also would require a lot more coding for Matias, and right now, he seems more concerned about resolving the few (but pretty serious) bugs. Matias: great job with the exclusion list changes. This helps a ton. I haven't had the app crash even once on me so far, but my Windows environment and software choices are very much differentiated from the norm. One thing I did notice that you may want to work on: even when it isn't drawing anything, WinExpose shows up as having a window to TaskSwitchXP. This app is a fantastic alt-tab replacement that captures window previews similarly to Expose, but makes a list instead of showing them all at once. I do use it a lot. Basically, in TaskSwitchXP, WinExpose is granted a full-screen, all black window. This is an additional entry on my Alt-Tab list, and worse, selecting WinExpose's entry produces no result, so I can't really tell how the app is registering it. EDIT: Here's a screenshot of the problem. By comparison, RK Launcher *never* shows up on the Alt-Tab list for TaskSwitchXP, nor do the applications I keep only on my System Tray (which do show up in WinExpose, so I keep them hidden with the exclusions). Oh, also Matias, I noticed that reselecting a currently Maximized window no longer un-maximizes it. Thanks for fixing that. Have you considered coming up with a method to eliminate the WinExpose tray icon ? Haven't managed to come up with anything incredible art-wise this weekend so far but I've been very busy. I'm currently out of town, spending time with some friends about 500 miles north of my hometown. Things will be back to normal for me on Monday though, and I'll finish up the ideas I was working on for you. Great job, man. I'm really glad to see how well this project is coming along.

Just the imagery and icons, we aren't coders, but we are artists. I actually have to leave for the rest of the night very soon but I'll be back tomorrow morning, and hopefully by then, we can get a mockup together for you. If you like it, we can do the artwork in a fashion compatible with the current UI.

Solution to the black-flickering issue that was brought up: tell it not to "update while exposed". This also reduces the CPU usage. The updates don't come often enough to really be useful, anything that is animating quickly will look very very choppy at best. Turning it off gives you solid previews, which means no video flicker, and this uses almost zero CPU usage. It's great. EDIT: Matias, I'd like to come up with some artwork for you to use with WinExpose. For example, instead of the current highly system on the Corner Selection options pane, I'd like to use something that is independent of skin, because my skin of choice makes it impossible to tell what corners are enabled or disabled. I'd also really like to help the project by cleaning up / redesigning the logo. It's not a bad design but the edges around it could stand to be much much smoother and cleaner looking. Between me and a friend, I know we could come up with something that would work nicely for you, if you'd let us.

mvprj84: not a bad idea, but keyboard shortcuts like that are easy to accidentally press, which could result in a close command sent to a window without the option to save the data. This could be bad. If a function like that were implemented, I'd really like to see the key configurable as well as the ability to disable that function entirely. Thus far, Matias has done a great job allowing the user to enable and disable functions from WinExpose as they see fit. The one thing missing still from the Expose clone-job is adding the hovering text over a window. He's already said that's on the way though. Matias: I have to say, sir, you have done a fantastic job keeping with the pulse of the community on this one. I've shown the app to several friends who don't visit Aqua-Soft who were very impressed and are now users.

vzact: if you're using hardware accelerated video playback, you're bound to get strange results. It's hard to explain all the technical details but suffice to say that your videocard is taking the video data before it hits the framebuffer and outputting it, in the right place, directly. This means that windows itself doesn't see the video contents, and thereby, WinExpose can't capture them. Also, the videocard probably isn't expecting WinExpose to move things around the way it does, and it probably continues its direct-to-screen output, causing flickers. It might be possible to eliminate the flickering but you'll never get moving video within the expose mode unless you're using software rendered video output (which is much slower than an Overlay aka Hardware output) EDIT: Love the new version, Matias. Great work encorporating the different engines into a single executable. The app is nice and fast, which I like. Also, as a workaround for the Tray items that were being restored, I just added their names to my ignore list and they stopped being restored. Having the ignore system the way you currently do does have some benefits, that's for sure, but it's probably still a good idea to allow applications to be blocked based on the .EXE filename, especially mediaplayers, because they change their name based on the song, so it's pretty much impossible to block them currently. That and IM clients who put the user's name into the window (Gaim in particular). Speaking of Gaim, for everyone out there who uses GTK+ based apps (Gaim, Gimp, there are many others but these are the big two on Windows), keep in mind that because of the way they are written, WinExpose (and anything else that uses a similar method of window capturing, TaskSwitchXP for example) is not going to be able to display them. Unfortunately, it displays the general outline of the window, but the contents are all black white. I'll take a screenshot and show you. As a method to prevent this, Matias, do you think it might be possible to, eventually, have some code to recognize GTK+ based applications and to draw their Icon at 64x64 or 128x128 instead of trying to capture the window itself (since a normal windows app can't interact with GTK+ and a GTK+ app can't interact with normal windows ones, meaning you couldn't recode WinExpose to use GTK+ or then it would only work with GTK+ applications, which would make it pretty bad). This is the best solution I can think of, and it's what I recommended to the team behind TaskSwitchXP.

raduking: RK Launcher 0.4 build 275 is awesome. I am a huge fan and love the app to death. Just wanted to show my support. Thanks for coming up with such a nice tool. Eagerly awaiting the next version too, of course.

Okay, a few little things: WinExpose is now restoring windows that hang out on my system tray exclusively. My Antivirus, AVG, is coming up whenever I press my Expose key, such that I manually have to close the window again (but it keeps running in the tray, just the way it should). Basically, WinExpose needs to be told to ignore windows that are currently hidden by way of System Tray icons somehow. GDI mode is really fast for me ! Not slow at all, however, still no background image. I don't mind, I'm sure you'll get it all worked out in time. I'm just trying to help you do so, mhmm !

Matias: WinExpose runs great on my ATI X1800 GTO, like a dream even. Yes, I do use a background, it is a BMP (not JPEG or PNG, because I really dislike Active Desktop, and any non-BMP format will require Active Desktop). I did notice that the Expose background color is the same as my desktop background color, which is fine. This is a fine solution to the color question, but I'm kinda curious if there would be an easy way to have a setting for, "Windows Desktop Color or Hex Color Code / Standard Windows Color Selector" in a menu somewhere, so that the user could specify their own color if they didn't want to use the windows background color. Still, not a big deal. As for the registry information: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop] "ActiveWndTrkTimeout"=dword:00000000 "AutoEndTasks"="0" "CaretWidth"=dword:00000001 "CoolSwitch"="1" "CoolSwitchColumns"="7" "CoolSwitchRows"="3" "CursorBlinkRate"="530" "DragFullWindows"="1" "DragHeight"="4" "DragWidth"="4" "FontSmoothing"="2" "FontSmoothingOrientation"=dword:00000001 "FontSmoothingType"=dword:00000002 "ForegroundFlashCount"=dword:00000003 "ForegroundLockTimeout"=dword:00000000 "GridGranularity"="0" "HungAppTimeout"="5000" "LowPowerActive"="0" "LowPowerTimeOut"="0" "MenuShowDelay"="400" "PaintDesktopVersion"=dword:00000000 "PowerOffActive"="0" "PowerOffTimeOut"="0" "ScreenSaverIsSecure"="0" "ScreenSaveTimeOut"="600" "ScreenSaveActive"="0" "TileWallpaper"="0" "UserPreferencesMask"=hex:90,12,07,80 "WaitToKillAppTimeout"="20000" "OriginalWallpaper"="C:Documents and SettingsKaishiLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftWallpaper1.bmp" "WheelScrollLines"="3" "SmoothScroll"=dword:00000000 "Pattern Upgrade"="TRUE" "FontSmoothingGamma"=dword:000003e8 "CTTuneMakeSettingsDefault"=dword:00000000 "ConvertedWallpaper"="C:WINDOWSWebWallpaperWindows XP.jpg" "ConvertedWallpaper Last WriteTime"=hex:00,50,bf,7c,89,27,c1,01 "WallpaperStyle"="2" "Wallpaper"="E:ImagesWallpaperAbstractionbitmapsGRAVITYPULL1_0.bmp" [HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktopWindowMetrics] "BorderWidth"="-15" "CaptionFont"=hex:f5,ff,ff,ff,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,bc,02,00,00, 00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,41,00,72,00,69,00,61,00,6c,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00 "CaptionHeight"="-270" "CaptionWidth"="-270" "IconFont"=hex:f5,ff,ff,ff,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,90,01,00,00,00, 00,00,01,00,00,00,00,54,00,61,00,68,00,6f,00,6d,00,61,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00 "IconSpacing"="-1125" "IconTitleWrap"="1" "IconVerticalspacing"="-1125" "MenuFont"=hex:f5,ff,ff,ff,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,90,01,00,00,00, 00,00,01,00,00,00,00,54,00,61,00,68,00,6f,00,6d,00,61,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00 "MenuHeight"="-285" "MenuWidth"="-285" "MessageFont"=hex:f5,ff,ff,ff,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,90,01,00,00, 00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,54,00,61,00,68,00,6f,00,6d,00,61,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00 "ScrollHeight"="-195" "ScrollWidth"="-195" "Shell Icon BPP"="32" "SmCaptionFont"=hex:f5,ff,ff,ff,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,90,01,00, 00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,54,00,61,00,68,00,6f,00,6d,00,61,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00 "SmCaptionHeight"="-225" "SmCaptionWidth"="-225" "StatusFont"=hex:f5,ff,ff,ff,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,90,01,00,00, 00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,54,00,61,00,68,00,6f,00,6d,00,61,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00 "AppliedDPI"=dword:00000060 "Shell Icon Size"="32" "MinAnimate"="0" "Shell Small Icon Size"="16"

heh, that's pretty amusing. I thought the opening comment about misogyny was the best part of the whole thing though.