{"id":96,"date":"2005-07-20T13:59:19","date_gmt":"2005-07-20T20:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/?p=96"},"modified":"2005-12-23T20:47:31","modified_gmt":"2005-12-24T04:47:31","slug":"expose-for-the-rest-of-the-computing-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/2005\/07\/20\/expose-for-the-rest-of-the-computing-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Expos\u00c3\u00a9 for the Non-Macs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Apple&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/macosx\/features\/expose\/\" target=\"_blank\">Expos\u00c3\u00a9<\/a> (more info <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Expos%C3%A9_%28Mac_OS_X%29 \" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>) was probably one of the most important windows management breakthroughs since &#8220;Alt + Tab&#8221;. Not too long after Apple released it along with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mac_OS_X_10.3_Panther\" target=\"_blank\">Panther<\/a>, developers soon found ways to simulate the effects in Windows.<\/p>\n<p>Case in point:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.winplosion.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">WinPLOSION<\/a>(formerly known as WinExpos\u00c3\u00a9 until Apple&#8217;s legal department knocked on their doors)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxygen-inc.com\/premium\/InsaniSoft\/iEx.htm\" target=\"_blank\">iEx<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/onlinetoolsteam.com\/WindowsExposer\/\" target=\"_blank\">WindowsExposer<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.entbloess.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Entbloess<\/a> (whatever that means)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.otakusoftware.com\/topdesk\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">TopDesk<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On the Opensource side, developers haven&#8217;t been standing idle. They also have come up with remarkable apps with similar tricks.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/gnomedesktop.org\/node\/1478\" target=\"_blank\">Expocity<\/a> (or visit the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pycage.de\/software_expocity.html\" target=\"_blank\">official project page<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/fluxbox.sourceforge.net\/fbpager\/\" target=\"_blank\">FbPager<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thegraveyard.org\/skippy.php\" target=\"_blank\">Skippy<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/kompose.berlios.de\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kompos\u00c3\u00a9<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Before we jump the gun and accuse everyone else for <del>stealing<\/del> introducing Apple&#8217;s innovations in other platforms, I must confess that I first saw an Expos%uFFFD-like functionality on a Linux system even before the introduction of Panther. And according to <a href=\"http:\/\/research.microsoft.com\/ui\/TaskGallery\/pages\/design.htm\" target=\"_blank\">this document<\/a> at Microsoft&#8217;s very own <a href=\"http:\/\/research.microsoft.com\/ui\/\" target=\"_blank\">UI Research lab<\/a>, a similar functionality had been in existence long before Mac OSX. Unfortunately the project just never made it to various releases of Windows.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/fold_n_drop.png\" width=\"222\" height=\"175\" class=\"centered\" alt=\"Fold n' Drop windows\" \/> <\/p>\n<p>Now let&#8217;s take it a step further and examine some up and coming technologies. First up is <a href=\"http:\/\/liihs.irit.fr\/dragice\/foldndrop\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fold n&#8217; Drop<\/a> project from a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.intuilab.com\/presentation\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">French lab<\/a>. The idea is to treat windows as pieces of paper. A user can fold, flip and leaf through them. There&#8217;s demo video and a Java demo app you can test it out. Very neat. And someone&#8217;s already <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kmonos.net\/lib\/orimado.en.html\" target=\"_blank\">made it work<\/a> on a Windows Machine.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/looking_glass.jpg\" width=\"246\" height=\"179\" class=\"centered\" alt=\"Project Looking Glass\" \/> <\/p>\n<p>Another pretty cool application is from Sun Microsystems. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sun.com\/software\/looking_glass\/\" target=\"_blank\">Porject Looking Glass<\/a> manipulates the Desktop and its windows each as 3D objects. It has features even a Mac user will envy. I was hoping to see some of them to be implemented in Tiger. <\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sun.com\/software\/looking_glass\/demo.xml\" target=\"_blank\">demo<\/a> is available for playback.<\/p>\n<p>Other emerging implementations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hamar.sk\/sphere\/\" target=\"_blank>SphereXP<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/3dcontrols.free.fr\/\" target=\"_blank\">3DControls<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/insitu.lri.fr\/~chapuis\/metisse\/\" target=\"_blank\">Metisse<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.infinite-3d.com\/screenshot.html\" target=\"_blank\">Cube<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I am sure there are plenty more advanced UI projects in the labs. If anyone knows any that&#8217;s not here, please do share them with me.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of emerging technologies, IBM&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alphaworks.ibm.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;alphaWorks: Emerging technologies&#8221;<\/a> website has been in my bookmarks for the longest time. It&#8217;s a site that features the latest technologies at IBM labs that are available for licensing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apple&#8217;s Expos\u00c3\u00a9 (more info here) was probably one of the most important windows management breakthroughs since &#8220;Alt + Tab&#8221;. Not too long after Apple released it along with Panther, developers soon found ways to simulate the effects in Windows. Case in point: WinPLOSION(formerly known as WinExpos\u00c3\u00a9 until Apple&#8217;s legal department knocked on their doors) iEx &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/2005\/07\/20\/expose-for-the-rest-of-the-computing-world\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Expos\u00c3\u00a9 for the Non-Macs&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,14,3,4,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geek-stuff","category-linuxunix","category-mac-osx","category-tips-tricks","category-windows"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p54IqZ-1y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredatom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}