Thumbnails of minimized windows

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MU
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Thumbnails of minimized windows

#1 Post by MU »

Small screenshot: see end of this message.

Large screenshot:
http://noforum.de/pics/Win-Thumbs.jpg

This is a panel with 12 large buttons.
If you click on one, your cursor becomes a cross.

Now if you click on a window, it is minimized.
And a small snapshot of it is placed on the button, on which you clicked.

If you move the mouse over these small snapshots, then you see a large preview in the middle of the screen.
If you click on the snapshot, the window is maximized again.

This solution is pretty quick on my Pentium 700, but I have 1 gigabyte of Ram.
I have no idea, how it will perform with 256 MB.

You need no special stuff like a composite-manager.

But you need a different windowmanager than JWM.
In Icewm it works fine.

I post it in "cutting edge", because you can not set up any options yet.
If your screen is too small, you cannot use it.
You cannot say "put all buttons in a row". This requires further programming.

But you can change the "look".
Replace this symlink with one pointing to a different Gtk-Theme:
/usr/local/Win-Thumbs/theme/activestyle

Requires Gtkbasic:
http://dotpups.de/puppy3/dotpups/Progra ... ic-003.pup

Mark
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Last edited by MU on Mon 05 May 2008, 00:36, edited 2 times in total.
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MU
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#2 Post by MU »

Updated the dotpup

Changes:
- Now "tooltips" with the title of the minimized window are shown over the buttons

- support for virtual desktops.
You now can run it on desktop 1, and another one on desktop 2.

- the large preview-picture now by default is shown directly left beside the buttons.

- support for start-options. Currently possible:

Win-Thumbs -x=0 -y=100 -centerpreview=1

So you can set the position of the buttons, and can force it to display the preview centered again.

I attach a screenshot in original size.

Mark
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#3 Post by MU »

I updated the dotpup.

IMPORTANT:
You need to upgrade GtkBasic003, too.
I just uploaded a bugfixed version!

New:
- If the buttons are covered by another window, they now will raise automatically, if you move the mouse over them.

This can be disabled by the option "-autoraise=0".
This feature raises CPU-usage, but only when your mouse is over the buttons.
I fiind it very practical.

- better click detection.
In the past, you often had to click twice to activate a button.
It now should work always with one click.
Overall it now should act "snappier".

- Run Expose:
If you right-click a button, expose is started, it shows all opened windows in a full-size picture using thumbnails.
You need for that feature the latest Expose 2.4 dotpup::
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=2369

Mark
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disciple
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#4 Post by disciple »

I wonder if there are any taskbars that show thumbnails of windows when you mouse over the taskbar buttons, like (ssshhh!) vista...

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#5 Post by MU »

There is a patch for KDE:
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=16261

In theory, my Winthumbs could be extended in a similar way.
I already was experimenting with the Fvwm2 windowmanager and Oroborus in that direction over 2 years ago.
http://www.freewebs.com/markulrich/wxb- ... /index.htm

But that approach was in wxBasic, and had many limitations.
At that time I started patching wxBasic, what was the base for creating PuppyBasic lateron.
Now with GtkBasic I should have all the required functions.

What I need to add is the detection, when Windows are minimized, and a technique to cycle through the buttons, if more windows are iconified than buttons are visible.

Unfortunately oroborus is not very actively maintained, so I hesitate to use it as a base. E.g. I cannot drag my Analogclock around with it.
Maybe a good reason to have a look at Fvwm2 again.
If I just knew how to patch Icewm to create thumbnails when it minimizes windows.
But it is written in C++, I don't find the relevant code, I have no knowledge in C++, only in C.
I will ask for help in their mailinglist, when my buttons can be configured more "taskbar-like".

Mark
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disciple
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#6 Post by disciple »

BTW Sometimes it is best to have thumbnails of windows that aren't minimised as well, as they may be under other windows.

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#7 Post by MU »

yes, for that reason I added Expose as right-click action.

The problem is, that you must get thumbnails somewhen.
If you minimize a window, it is a good moment, to take a snapshot.
If you would do that from running un-iconified windows, it would be slow.
So I added Expose, that creates thumbnails only when you explicitly request them.

This is different from Vista or Compiz (Beryl), where each window is an OpenGL-object.
That 3D approach can display even running videos in a thumbnail.

But that requires the compiz extension (like the NOP Puplet).
My approach uses the old 2D system based on simple bitmaps.
That is not so flexible, but works without addons even on old computers.

Mark
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#8 Post by MU »

the last dotpup was broken, fixed it.
Mark
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