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Expose-like task switcher for Xfce
Status:
RESOLVED: MOVED
Severity:
enhancement

Comments

Description Christof Schulze 2007-09-12 01:11:23 CEST
User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686 (x86_64); de; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6
Build Identifier: 

it would be great to have a task switcher for xfce that could display all windows side by side like the application switcher of apple'S OSX

skippy is not an option since it crashes constantly but skippy-xd might actually do what I want (not sure since it keeps crashing on my system)
compiz is not an option since it would involve using a different windowmanager, but xfwm is otherwise superior.

Reproducible: Always
Comment 1 Damian 2008-12-10 08:55:57 CET
I agree. It would be a very nice feature to have.
Comment 2 Yves-Alexis Perez editbugs 2010-08-18 12:48:19 CEST
*** Bug 4161 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 3 Rob 2010-12-14 20:53:38 CET
This could always be an extra tab in the Window Manager Tweaks settings. That way, not everyone has to enable it.
Comment 4 thecursedfly 2011-03-10 03:50:15 CET
I would love this feature. Basically one of the very few things I search from compositing.

This could be implemented with different performance options, ranging from live preview of the windows, to still image previews, to just the application icon.
Additional details to remember:
1. ability to keep windows proportions
2. differentiate between minimized/normal windows
3. show only the windows of the active application
4. show only the windows from the current desktop.

And maybe, group the windows by application (unless point 3 is selected)?
Comment 5 Edoardo Maria Elidoro 2013-03-21 18:07:24 CET
It would be a nice feature indeed. As someone else said, Skippy it's not an option. Not just for the stability issues, but also because Skippy (and Skippy-xd) won't show minimize windows so it's quite useless.
Comment 6 Marco Milone 2013-03-21 19:14:07 CET
(In reply to comment #5)
> It would be a nice feature indeed. As someone else said, Skippy it's not an
> option. Not just for the stability issues, but also because Skippy (and
> Skippy-xd) won't show minimize windows so it's quite useless.

I'm glad to see some movement about this. I think that some sort of expose is one of the very few features that Xfce lacks compared to other DEs and one that usually users coming from alternatives (GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, Unity, etc) complain about.
I as a user would find expose very useful indeed.

Unfortunately I don't know how hard it would be to implement it, but it would be really appreciated.

Thanks for considering.
Comment 7 Patrik Bubák 2013-03-25 15:25:39 CET
+1 from me also.
Comment 8 Edoardo Maria Elidoro 2013-03-25 17:47:18 CET
I think you can also try to integrate Telescope (https://bitbucket.org/IlyaSkriblovsky/telescope), a really fast and lightweight task switcher abandoned by the developer.
Comment 9 Diego 2013-03-25 21:56:29 CET
I've used telescope. Is a quite shiny, simply to configure but a bit buggy.
Comment 10 wkrekik 2013-04-09 19:09:51 CEST
+1 for me either
Comment 11 Felipe Contreras 2013-10-08 04:00:30 CEST
Any progress on this? Any other recommendations?
Comment 12 xjesus.net 2014-11-30 17:26:29 CET
There is a very useful solution already: Xfdashboard 
http://www.webupd8.org/2014/07/xfdashboard-gnome-shell-like-dashboard-xfce-xubuntu.html
Comment 13 Danielsan 2017-11-26 00:29:04 CET
Created attachment 7450 
mockup expose

Hi guys,

I believe that Xfdashboard is a very poor solution, it tries to emulate the Gnome Shell Activities but the result is pretty ugly and complicated.

My suggestion seems to me easier and simple to achieve, the idea is to modify the behavior of the current "Window Switcher Dialog" in order to create a new command that works a functional and working full-screen task-switcher. 

Basically instead to scroll all the windows one for one, you will display all the windows at glance in a grid system, and instead of having the icons at the bottom you should have the list of desktops, with the desktop where the windows is active enlighten. Selecting a new windows or a new desktop automatically you close the "full-screen task-switcher" and you return in your current desktop. Please refer to the mock-up to visualize what I mean.

Thanks in advance,

Daniel
Comment 14 Chris Rainey 2018-04-09 16:21:08 CEST
+1

Zorin OS Lite 12.3 is using the excellent xfce4-dockbarx-plugin to provide an improved taskbar for launching and grouping running apps. It would be great to see this added to the xfce4 main repo or default panel options. Adding thumbnail previews would be even better!
Comment 15 epitron 2019-07-12 19:18:57 CEST
+1

Because exposé is still awesome.
Comment 16 go.prodml 2019-12-29 16:03:26 CET
+1

this is really needed. right now im using skippy-xd; why not integrate some of the code from there?
Comment 17 Git Bot editbugs 2020-05-29 11:38:42 CEST
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Bug #3541

Reported by:
Christof Schulze
Reported on: 2007-09-12
Last modified on: 2020-05-29
Duplicates (1):

People

Assignee:
Olivier Fourdan
CC List:
17 users

Version

Attachments

mockup expose (56.55 KB, image/png)
2017-11-26 00:29 CET , Danielsan
no flags

Additional information