There is now an Exposé-clone available for Windows-users to purchase. Exposé is a new function of managing open windows on Mac OS X Panther.
Exposé-clone Available for Windows
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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If you’ve used expose, then you will know that it’s more then just a tool for showing all your windows. It’s also a great help for things like drag and drop.
The coolest use of this feature imo is when you have a file on your esktop that you want to drag and drop into a window. You use the desktop shortcut to show your desktop, then show all windows, find the window you want and hold the cursor over that window until it is selected, then you can drop it on the window in the right spot.
They don’t mention on their site if this functionality is supported.
Also in the FAQ they say that some windows are grey ( if they are minimized) and that sometimes it behaives really slowly. Apple already solved these problems and because of their solution expose works really well on the Mac. Expose won’t work well on the PC until the graphics system is accelerated in the way that the Mac’s is.
Sad that Windows users have to pay, while Mac users get this for free. I doubt that it is functionally equivalent anyway. Hopefully there will be a Linux version soon. Maybe someone will be kind enough to port it for the poor Windows users.
there has also been a exposé for windows freeware for some time. however, it’s quite slow and in now way comparable to the original exposé on mac – but still it’s freeware:
here’s the link:
http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/index.php?showtopic=5032&st=15
The Expose-hack for Metacity (Expocity) wasn’t posted here. :<
If you want Mac features get a Mac. Let’s face it, this won’t work as well as it will on a Mac so why bother with a bastardized version.
Isn’t this patented technology, aren’t they treading on thin ice?
>> Isn’t this patented technology, aren’t they treading on thin ice?
Everything is patented these days, why bother.. you (almost) can’t write software without breaking patents.
The metacity expose hack was a horrible hack that didnt work well. The reason was because of the fact that it is impossible to do this snaly currently in XFree86. Windows has the needed framwork for it. So does Mac (obvioussly).
One the xserver extensions (in a way simmilar to sun’s looking glass) are used, it should be simple to implement it with descent efficiency.
>The Expose-hack for Metacity (Expocity) wasn’t posted here. :<
I suggest you read our freedesktop.org interview. We were the FIRST to announce fd.o’s new X similar feature (Exposity is an ugly hack, at least fd.o’s implementation is more integrated). So, do your research before opening your mouth.
I guarantee they will be getting a letter from Apple. Just look how quickly the AquaApps were killed off.
OMG, I didn’t realize you could do that with Expose…I thought it was strictly for switching to different windows. Now OS X has become even more useful for me!
I wonder if we will see this in LONGHORN!
Ok, why is this needed on a Widows box? Honestly, windows can have that many programs open without slowing to a crawl.
Not trolling, just saying.
Just another ability stolen from OS/2.
The woman in the santa outfit is worth checking out alone.
Always happens when someone ports a mac feature. “Why not just get a mac?”. Maybe because we don’t want a mac, but just like one or two of the features? ANY computer is a lot of money, and most of us can’t just go out and buy a new one when we feel like it. But, paying $9.99 (or free since I use expocity, and it works VERY well for me) is affordable.
Also, “iEx”, the app that is at Aqua-Soft (linked to in an earlier post) will be worked on again, very soon. It is in the process of recieving full hardware acceleration. And, its free.
As far as I know, the reason why this happens on Windows and not on OSX is because of the way the windows are composited on the screen.
When you minimize a window in windows it doesn’t render, it just becomes a hidden minimized app bar. OSX’s windows are rendered offscreen and composited onto the desktop so they are always being rendered. This is what allows live snapshots in the dock for minimized programs, the contents of the windows to be live in Expose, and maybe even drag and drop.Though I don’t see why a clone can’t send d&d command to the parent app of a snapshot. But I’m no programmer so somebody else who is would probably know better about that.
All that will be entirely possible in Longhorn but that is still 2 years off isn’t it.
Sad that Windows users have to pay, while Mac users get this for free.
Umm…Mac OSX 10.3 is not free, most Mac users had to pay Apple for the upgrade to get that feature.
Some people buy a Honda, tighten up the suspension & convince themselves it drives like a BMW… all fine and dandy, but it ain’t a BMW, not even close.
personnally I drive an older BMW ’cause I can’t afford a new one (’87 325)… and I drive with a big smile on my face…
Oh, and I do use Macs, not at day job… but everywhere else
Jb
Unfortunately, BMWs, although expensive, are some of the crappiest cars out there. A BMW will always spend more time in the shop than a Honda.
So, you’re right. A Honda is nothing like a BMW. (Btw, I drive a Honda. 🙂
I have used expose and it’s nice but not worth all the praise. Please stop with the BMW etc as that is so old and flawed that you can see the road through the hole in the floor.
Hondas and BMWs both seem roughly equal when I pass them in my Subaru.
Some people buy a Honda, tighten up the suspension & convince themselves it drives like a BMW… all fine and dandy, but it ain’t a BMW, not even clos
Of course, people who drive cars like Hondas that last for years on end will just laugh at people who pay 4x for a machine which basically does the same thing as a Honda, gets them from one place to the next. Plus, BMWs can be expensive as hell to repair as well.
The metacity expose hack was a horrible hack that didnt work well. The reason was because of the fact that it is impossible to do this snaly currently in XFree86. Windows has the needed framwork for it. So does Mac (obvioussly).
Windows will not have the framework for it until longhorn. Right now the way windows draws is actually quite similar to XFree86.
They sould have to pay for naming the product (something)Exposé !?
_____________________
Windows doesn’t need an Exposé like applications. Windows has the task bar with the application icon,
which is much, much better than that frivolous, VGA card resource consuming application. You can even resize that task bar when the number of applications get higher. Who needs exposé on windows ?
The Expose-hack for Metacity (Expocity) wasn’t posted here. :<
I suggest you read our freedesktop.org interview. We were the FIRST to announce fd.o’s new X similar feature (Exposity is an ugly hack, at least fd.o’s implementation is more integrated). So, do your research before opening your mouth.
Good point. Sadly I wasn’t talking about fd.o’s new server.
You should do you research about what I write before answering.
SNAP!!!!!
I doubt they could get in trouble over the simple way of moving windows around, however how legal is that name? It wouldn’t surprise me if Apple has to claim the name exposé.
And on a note over exposé itself, I honestly thought the feature was cute, though nothing but eye candy.. until I actually upgraded to Panther. I’ve actually found myself using the show all windows and show desktop function regularly. It’s actually great while tied to 4th and 5th mouse buttons.
Well, this is a suprise! I would have imagine that this software would have come out from Stardock! This would have been a nice tool to add in ObjectDesktop.
Oh well…
…why is it needed in Windows for anything other than eye candy?
Ironically, my parents had a BMW up until last year, but got rid of it because it was really expensive to get repaired. Ironically, they bought a Honda.
Honda notwithstaninding, I know there are a lot of little cheap foreign cars that will last forever. Although they are not as ‘stylish’ as their more expensive counterparts, I have always been one to leave ‘stylish’ things to shallow people .. drive that $40,000+ luxury automobile if you wanna, but at the end of the day, we’re both going to arrive at work at the same time, only I’ll do it and save $25,000
I had a PC that was bought in 1991, and I just retired it a few months ago. Yeah, it has been upgraded a few times along the way, but the cool thing is that you can actually do that with PCs
I forgot what the topic was? Was it Honda’s last longer than MWs?
Oh how the mind works
I have to agree with contrasutra post earlier, but on a broader level. This mentality of “You should just get a MAC” is tiresome to hear whenever any feature, Mac or PC comes out. I for one work for a computer store as a tech and I am not ashamed to say that I love Mac’s, since I am often the one that repairs them frequently and answer technical questions from customers and employees about them. Everything from the design to most importantly the operating system, I do enjoy them. Now that you know I love Mac’s understand this: I do not own one, nor do I necessarily plan on it. The reasoning boils down to tangibility, I could buy an eMac from $799 an iMac from $1299 or a Power Mac from $1799 (www.apple.com). I choose not to because I’d rather get 2-4 times as many PC’s for those prices, with parts that I can pick out myself from a distributor, even if it is with an “inferior” operating system, although it works for a great majority. Get over the fact that some of us do actually like the product, just not the price. Don’t get me wrong the next post 2 GHz G5 Power Mac sub 600 crosses my doorstep is as good as sold, but I’m not holding my breath. Hopefully you could see how when the next Mac persuader posts “You should just get a Mac,” I should hope he would realize that some of us do want Mac’s but were not determined enough to spend that much money, on top of which no one likes to be pestered. To those of you who have purchased Mac’s I say “Enjoy,” and leave us with our own decisions. Note, this was a rant of opinions, don’t like it? I don’t want to hear it, because it wasn’t meant to offend.
I should hope he would realize that some of us do want Mac’s but were not determined enough to spend that much money,
Can the MAC use ATA raid 0 or SCSI Ultra320 – 15K rpm on a 64 bit PCI-X ?
I never saw MAC drivers on my ATA Raid controlers.
I should hope he would realize that some of us do want Mac’s but were not determined enough to spend that much money
And there are others of us who would like to try one, but $800 even for a low end machine is kind of an expensive price to pay for a trial period. I have played with OSX at Fry’s and other places, but it simply doesn’t tickle my fancy.
Some people say you just have to spend some time with it, but I’m not going to pay that much to find out if a user interface that doesn’t rub me the right way initially will get better with time. I mean, would you buy a BMW if you didn’t particularly like the handling of it after test driving one?
Perhaps if I could *rent* a G5 for a couple of weeks …
And you wonder why there is a large mac elitist attitude.
Most of us want it but can’t afford it? Why not go even further:
I could afford a mac, but I don’t want one. I bought a new PC recently, and had a budget of $1300. That would have easily bought me a mac, but I bought a PC because I run linux. Linux is much easier to run on a PC. Also, I get easier upgradability, and IMO, its a faster machine (though of course thats arguable).
So yeah, some of us don’t actually want a mac. If you want one, fine, but don’t assume we all think like you.
I find the interface of OSX to be beautiful, but I can’t justify buying a computer just for that. I spend most of my time in the CLI anyway. Plus, Linux is catching up rather quickly.
My original point was that some/most people already own PCs, and can’t afford to buy ANY new computer.
I agree, i should have mentioned that, when i use Mac OSX Shut every little graphical annoyance off, its “pretty” enough on its own i dont need all that extra graphic, latancy in my way, same thing with windows tho.
But NOTHING beats engine displacement/torque. Remember the ol’American cars? Torque baby… When I drive my BMW it reminds me pf my ol’ 73 Buick Riviera(except for the suspension and physical size).
I don’t know what BMW prices are like in America, but here in .au BMW’s with engine sizes over 2.5L cost upwards of AU$60,000. The vast majority of BMWs most people here are driving (316s, 318s and maybe 320s) have engine capacities similar to the average Honda (and cost 50% more to boot).
BMWs are nice cars, to be sure, but certainly here in .au you can buy a car just as good – if not better – for a lot less.
People say that Macs cost more, and that’s true… I had to replace my PC 3 times before I needed to upgrade my Mac.
“Had to” ? What “forced” you to upgrade your PC that didn’t for you to upgrade your Mac ? What type of PC was it – name brand or built from the cheapest parts available ?
I had my PC open much more often than the mac…
Uh huh. Because you “had to” or because doing so was useful for more than some media photo shoots ?
Last for years? I know off a helluva a lot more BMWs (sic apples) that thast well over 300,000 km and run like a charm (mines at 270,000.
I’ve known a heckuva lot of much cheaper cars that have a lot more kms on them than that. The taxi I drove while I was at Uni had done over 1,300,000 kms.
Back to expose…
It’s excellent that developers are cloning a VERY USEFUL feature of the OS. The drag’n’drop stuff is F-in AMAZING. And, yes… it chaanges the way I use my mac
Can’t argue about Expose though, it’s a killer feature if you regularly multitask heavily.
This fighting over mac and pcs or honda and BMWs — who cares! I say if you like it — use it!
Personally, before mac OS 10.x I ‘hated’ macs with a passion. Now, I think macs are the bomb – just can’t afford one! Therefore, I resort to building my pc from parts. I keep my power house system running Windows2k purely for games — nothing else, and I keep my a bit less of a power house ( P3- 1.4Ghz – 896MB ram) running Linux ( Fedora Core 1 ).
Point is all them have their cool features or adv. & disadv. — use what you want (this includes your honda or BMW)! So, Expose is available for Windows now – great! If you like it — use it. If you don’t…. don’t use it! It’s your choice… Honestly, I would much rather have choice of what to use. This is why I _love_ Linux so much — I have choice (okay, sometimes a bit too much choice, but that’s something diff).
Summary:
Mac Users — Enjoy the kick ass Mac OS X
Windows Users — Play your games, and disconnect your pc from the weeb _or_ get a firewall, and learn how to use it!
GNU Linux Users — all I have to say: “I love you guys!”
BSD Users — I know nothing about BSD, but all the power to you!
I’m not going to say you must own a Mac or anything, but you say that you spend most of your time in the CLI, and Linux is catching up quickly…
Makes me wonder, what do you use Linux for? There’s a darn good chance the Mac has it already, and much more. I don’t blame you for not wanting to spend a lot on candy coating, but hey, if you get everything else you need, there’s nothing wrong with a little candy coating. 🙂
If you haven’t used the Mac OS X Panther implementation of Expose, please do not even bother commenting on it. Like many visually impressive Mac OS X features, it’s often denigrated for, well, the fact that it really is visually impressive. Regardless, it is an incredibly functional feature. And more power to developers on other platforms who aspire to duplicate it. Say all you want about the nature of the word “innovation”, but I have no problem with developers taking inspiration from their peers. If an idea works, then why shouldn’t we all benefit? That’s the accumulative, and beautiful, effect of technolgy. That’s why we have more than one operating system, open source, proprietary or otherwise.
That said, I think it’s wrong that the developers of this Windows implementation of Expose went so far as to blatently name it after the Apple Mac OS X feature. Give it your own name, and give credit in the documentation, rather than seek to profit by use of the name of a feature you are attempting to duplicate. Profit by duplication if you must, but not by partial name recognition. If your particular implementation is practical, you will profit regardless of the naming convention.
Does this expose feature have limits? I am wondering if anyone had any problems using it with many windows open.
and something else: am I the only one that see’s sexoual implication in the name “longhorn”?
By Jace
As this is a workaround to poor Mac window management…
…why is it needed in Windows for anything other than eye candy?
excuse me one moment. LOL
please refrain from trying to compensate for windows inadequacies.
Expose is revolutionary- and I am 100% sure the industry will disagree with your comments- as Expose clones will rise all over the place.
Expose is, in fact. the most cutting edge window management system available.
Windows doesn’t need an Exposé like applications. Windows has the task bar with the application icon,
which is much, much better than that frivolous, VGA card resource consuming application. You can even resize that task bar when the number of applications get higher. Who needs exposé on windows ?
you keep thinking that my unacquainted friend. Your ignorance is my bliss.
I was skeptical about Exposé until I actually started using it. Now I never minimise a window ever, and once this feature is mature on Win32 I will use it.
As for eye candy causing graphics latency on the Mac – it doesn’t, at least not on anything based on Quartz Extreme. It may drop a few frames now and then, but that’s not latency. If with CPU at 100% I have never had an unresponsive OS 10.3 — same cannot be said of XP and *waiting* for it to draw windows, actually *seeing* it draw the border and then filling in the middle. Sure, the XP box was under high load and it suffered latency doing a basic window redraw. I have *never* seen the same thing on OS X under similar load.
I may even switch back to Longhorn if it’s any good – but I’m not holding my breath.
Let me chant my motto here…
NO TRIAL, NO WAY.
mainly because of different way windows are oraginised in ms systems – all smallish (toolbox etc.) are grouped in main app window. Furthermore more and more popular is use of tabs. So I (and many other I guess) end up having open only few windows, even when heavily multitasking.
i don’t understand you guys. a lot of ppl wants to separate macs and pcs. the best would be to share the knowledge on both platforms. every platforms have their own innovation and it is very important to share them with others. maybe the software industry would develop faster if apple/microsoft/etc don’t protect their innovations.
ACK.
The Multi Document Interface (MDI) used in Windows is just a workaround back from Windows 1.x-3.x times, when MS was not allowed (by court) to use a desktop as the MacOS did. In MacOS a program can open multiple windows with flow around freely on the desktop. In Windows programs either open a second instance of the app (e.g. notepad) or use a MDI (e.g. Photoshop). (MS’s office apps used different standart behaviours through their versions).
This MDI behaviour is counter-produktive when using something like Expose.
Patented? What patent?