SmartFlip

[lgratian]

Hi! I want to present a great application that I've developed. SmartFlip is a replacement for the Flip3D function in Windows Vista.

It places the windows on a circle (it's actually a ellipsis combined with a parabola ;) ),

You can select to which window you want to

flip by using the keyboard or the mouse. You can use as a trigger a keyboard key (you can even replace Flip3D, so that SmartFlip

appears when you press Win+TAB) or a screen region (for example, the left corner).

Because it's build using WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), I could "copy" some

of the features Mac OS X Expose has. For example, when you place the mouse over a window, the title of the windows appears

with a nice glow effect :) . Another useful feature I implemented is that you can display only the windows related (created by

the same program) with the active one (which has focus).

Another important thing is that you can fully customize SmartFlip.

Notice that this is a "beta" version and it may contain bugs. If you find one, or have any suggestions, please post it here.

You can find a small documentation in the zip file that comes attached to this post.

Edit:

Here you can watch the program in action:

And here is a direct link to the application (for those who don't have a Neowin account): http://smartflip.110mb.com/SmartFlip.zip

DOWNLOAD !

SmartFlip.zip

Here are two screenshots:

PS: the next version will include voice recognition

You can improve a little the drawing speed if you set the background opacity to 255.

Edited February 20, 2007 by lgratian

[WelshBluebird]

Looks awesome.

I don't have vista on my PC anymore, since atm I want all my HDD space for XP, although when I do get vista when it comes out, this may well be one of the first things I download and install.

[theh0g]

Works great! 2 things: it doesn't find Remote Desktop Connection program, while Vista's flip does (EDIT: it won't find minimized Windows). There is some delay when I first try to rotate windows. Other than that, excellent!

[lgratian]

Works great! 2 things: it doesn't find Remote Desktop Connection program, while Vista's flip does (EDIT: it won't find minimized Windows). There is some delay when I first try to rotate windows. Other than that, excellent!

It works for me with the Remote Desktop Conection program. And it always finds minimized windows ! The only window that it doesn't find is WinDVD, but

Flip3D doesn't finds it either :p.

Edit: I updated the application. Now it blocks any key press when it's running. So it prevents you from starting, lets say, Explorer when you replaced Flip3D.

Edited January 14, 2007 by lgratian

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Cool app!

A couple things I noticed...

1) It's really really slow if I turn on the "Show window titles" option, and "animate on show" doesn't really work, just adds a delay it seems.

2) There's no option to show the desktop window in the list, as Flip / Flip3D do.

3) I have a hunch that you are marking your application window as maximized... and that you should not =)

[lgratian]

Cool app!

A couple things I noticed...

1) It's really really slow if I turn on the "Show window titles" option, and "animate on show" doesn't really work, just adds a delay it seems.

2) There's no option to show the desktop window in the list, as Flip / Flip3D do.

3) I have a hunch that you are marking your application window as maximized... and that you should not =)

Let's start with the first problem. When you set the "Show window titles", it may be slow because it usses WPF to display the titles, which

needs a good graphics card. Probably you graphics card is not powerfull enough.

It should show how the windows come to their place, try this with, let's say, 3-4 windows. When you have many windows,

DWM API it's too slow too update so many window.

Until the final version (probably one week after Vista ships), I will provide a feature to display the desktop icon too.

In the current version it's maximized, but i'm going to modify it.

Final note: thank Microsoft for providing this very "powerfull" way to handle window thumbnails. You can only use them in 2D, and moving them is very slow, even on a good graphics card. :(

[Meshuggah]

wow cool...another app i will watch and use once a few more updated builds come out :D

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Let's start with the first problem. When you set the "Show window titles", it may be slow because it usses WPF to display the titles, which

needs a good graphics card. Probably you graphics card is not powerfull enough.

It should show how the windows come to their place, try this with, let's say, 3-4 windows. When you have many windows,

DWM API it's too slow too update so many window.

Well, my graphics cards is a 7800GTX... so I kind of doubt that is the problem :) Could be a performance interaction with something else I'm running, hard to say without knowing what your code is doing.

In the current version it's maximized, but i'm going to modify it.

Yeah... that will work better for Ultimate users :)

Final note: thank Microsoft for providing this very "powerfull" way to handle window thumbnails. You can only use them in 2D, and moving them is very slow, even on a good graphics card. :(

Well, the 2D thing could change at some point, who knows. As for performance, that could be a matter of how you're using the API. Unfortunately there is no managed code interface so if you're using WPF it might take some work to get the best performance out of it with WPF (especially since it's an HWND-based mechanism).

Oh - and I forgot to ask... Any plans to release the source?

[lgratian]

Well, my graphics cards is a 7800GTX... so I kind of doubt that is the problem :) Could be a performance interaction with something else I'm running, hard to say without knowing what your code is doing.

Yeah... that will work better for Ultimate users :)

Well, the 2D thing could change at some point, who knows. As for performance, that could be a matter of how you're using the API. Unfortunately there is no managed code interface so if you're using WPF it might take some work to get the best performance out of it with WPF (especially since it's an HWND-based mechanism).

Oh - and I forgot to ask... Any plans to release the source?

I have an old FX 5700LE, so I tought that the performance problems are caused by it. I just made a simple app that displays a text with glow, and I noticed it's pretty fast when it's animated. Maybe it's someting wrong in my code, I will check it tomorow. ;)

I really hope they will make the 3D API public. The window updating it's not slowed by WPF. At the beginnig, I made the same sample application in Win32 and in WPF. I haven't notice any difference in update speed, so I moved foreward with the WPF implementation.

If you have other suggestions, please let me know :) .

And the source code (~7000 code lines) ... I haven't decided yet if I make it public ;)

[fatcatxp]

Man, best Windows program ever seen!

[paesan]

Nice app. Good work

[Digitalx]

indeed, nice.

[akb]

nice and working well, thx for this one :-)

[bcell]

Overall, it looks really nice. I'm running it on my Thinkpad T43 and it seems really smooth. I really like the ability to scroll through windows created by the current app. When working with Matlab, I often end up with many figure windows, which can be a pain to sort through.

The only problem I'm having is that I can't seem to scroll through the windows using tab or shift-tab. I can right click on windows to zoom them, but tab seems to do nothing. Am I do something stupid?

thanks

[b0m8er]

awesome thanks!

[gxsaurav]

Other then it being slow on my Geforce FX 5900XT, it's awsome

[MrCobra]

And the source code (~7000 code lines) ... I haven't decided yet if I make it public ;)

Watch it. It'll show up in a Microsoft feature somewhere along the line if you do. :shiftyninja:

Nice looking app btw.

[Guest]

If you can do this.. is there anything stopping you from creating a fully hardware accelerated expose?...??....?

[Jbell529]

Hey i downloaded it but when i try to open the program... it just shuts down even before it starts. Windows say it does not work... do i need to run this program with some other one or what.

[akb]

if you have vista it should work out of the box i think. at least it did here...

[Jbell529]

See the app does not work for some reason. It gives me this right when i click on it. i have duel screens but i don't think that would do anything

[akb]

maybe it does matter resp. it has a bug related to dual monitor displays. have you ever tried to run it without the second monitor activated?

[Jbell529]

ya it still does not work with or without dual...

[Mike Coscia]

This is awsome can't wait to try it out when I install Vista this weekend.

[xxdesmus]

Not workin so hot on my laptop with ATI graphics...very slow.