February 1st, 2006

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Technology
6 Comments »

Expose for Windows x 3

Because I’ve got a Windows desktop and a PowerBook, I’m a 75% Windows and 25% Apple user. A killer feature that I’ve missed on Windows is Apple’s Expose, where you move your mouse cursor to a corner and can see thumbnails of all your open windows.

In the past couple of days, I’ve come across no less than three analogous solutions for Windows users:

  • SmallWindows 0.72 - An open source project, and the only one I’ve tried. It’s a little clunky, offers not configuration options, but seems to work as advertised. Still in beta. Price: free, as in beer.
  • Entbloess 2.7.2 - Has an awesome German name and extensive configuration options. Not quite as instantaneous as Expose, but I could live with the split-second delay. Also, I’m using a honkin’ 23″ cinematic display, so it probably runs faster at a lower resolution. Price: CAN $10
  • TopDesk 1.4 - Functions very similarly to Entbloess, thought it’s a little slower. I also don’t like how when you “hide all windows”, the windows get 90% submerged at the bottom of the screen. Price: CAN $11.35

Call me frugal, but I’m hesistant to pay for something in one OS that another OS gives me for free. I’ll wait for Windows Vista and hope they include this feature with a sexy name like Microsoft Transom or something.

Comments: 6 Responses so far

Chris
February 1st, 2006
9:35 am

“Call me frugal, but I’m hesistant to pay for something in one OS that another OS gives me for free.”

Me too. That’s why I use linux.

[Reply]

Ian King
February 1st, 2006
11:08 am

The Alt-Tab Replacement powertoy for Windows (1/3 of the way down the page) shows thumbnails of the application windows as you cycle through them. Quite useful if you use keyboard navigation, which is one area where Windows does do a better job than the Mac.

[Reply]

James Stewart
February 1st, 2006
7:23 pm

Hi Darren,

I’m from Otaku Software, the developers of TopDesk. I’m concerned to see that TopDesk is running slower on your system that the other utilities, and I think the problem may be that it’s not configured optimally for your system. If you’d like drop me a line I’ll be happy to advise you on the best configuration for your machine.

The windows are hidden to 90% because if we didn’t, if Windows Explorer were to crash any window that saves it’s position when you move it would be stuck off-screen. Hiding them to 90% isn’t perfect, but it’s the best way we can ensure that users never “lose” their windows when the OS goes belly up.

[Reply]

Michael Johnson
February 10th, 2007
6:05 am

I recommend Admiral at http://www.mexircus.com. It looks really good. Nice fluid animation. There are lots of extra features there. Like support for drag-and-drop. Search of windows. Tab to switch between sets of windows from different applications (Really cool with Internet Explorer). There is even a quick open feature that allows you to quickly open programs, files, folders and open windows. So it really is quite cool.

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Love apple
November 5th, 2007
3:37 am

i dont know why people still sell these softwares, why not release them free and then earn money by having people donate?

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Sam
March 9th, 2009
1:57 pm

Hi James,

One feature I have seen in a few programs is the ability to relocate all program windows to the middle of the primary monitor. I’ve had a few programs where dialog boxes etc were stuck offscreen (due to a disconnected second display for example) and I think that is a great solution because you can’t always prevent window positions from being saved offscreen.

Regards,
Sam

[Reply]

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