Comments | mannu: Expose-like window navigation in Flex

mannu

Expose-like window navigation in Flex

Nov 26, 2006 04:55

What's the point in buying a Mac if you're not going to copy some of its cool features?

In my spare time, I've been working on an implementation of Expose-like window navigation in Flex 2. It's nowhere near complete, but I got so desperate to write about it that I've uploaded a quick demo here (SWF).

( Read more... )

flex, hacks

Comments 14

(The comment has been removed)

mannu November 26 2006, 00:34:48 UTC

Dang, I thought F8 would be free! It's such an obvious choice.

Okay, I've uploaded a version in which you can enter expose mode by hovering the mouse over the little "Press F8 for Flexpose" text at the bottom. Try that. To return to normal mode, just click anywhere (or on a window).

ext_21210 November 26 2006, 02:15:05 UTC

Great minds think alike?

fyi ... see also:
www.jessewarden.com/archives/2006/11/flex_panel_expo.html

ext_21210 November 26 2006, 04:05:03 UTC

Looks sweet dude!

Campbell

mannu November 26 2006, 11:39:39 UTC

What a coincidence! If I knew Jesse had an implementation, it could have saved me some thinking. Anyway, from looking at the source, it looks like he's using a more simple algorithm, although I'm not sure how close it gets to the Expose implementation in OS X.

NIce but CPU-intensive anonymous November 26 2006, 10:59:26 UTC

Very nice, but when I've opened three videos, the CPU utilization jumped to 80%. What's the frame rate of this app? Try to lower it.

The fact that this demo does not work in IE means that Flash Player does not deliver on the promise to be a cross-platform solution. I wonder if Adobe engineering knows about it?

Regards,
Yakov Fain

Re: NIce but CPU-intensive mannu November 26 2006, 11:53:20 UTC

Thanks, Yakov. I'll look into the CPU utilisation.

The only reason this demo does not work in IE is that YouTube makes it so hard to access the FLV file instead of just providing a direct URL (which it did earlier). So I'm using a hack that somehow doesn't work in IE, and I haven't tried to figure out why.

The lack of IE support is specific to this app and YouTube; it has nothing to do with Flexpose or Flex in general.

I should probably fix it anyway; it doesn't leave a good impression otherwise.

code_martial November 26 2006, 16:45:17 UTC

You're a total rockstar dude! BTW, works perfectly for me with Flash 9 beta, Firefox 2 on RHEL 4.

Great but i cant waite!! code_martial December 4 2006, 14:43:17 UTC

I can't waite, so... I'm building my own..
Check my weblog for the updates..
And do you know how Apple's filling/sorting algorithm works?

http://labs.flexcoders.nl

Many Windows anonymous December 13 2006, 06:14:44 UTC

Is there a performance overhead in Flex for allowing all of those windows to popup? If so, how big? I'm looking into implementing a window-based chat app.

Re: Many Windows mannu December 13 2006, 14:25:49 UTC

Well, every window will take up some memory, depending on the amount of content (controls and data) within it. The numbers would be specific to your application, really.

But there isn't much of a difference between pop-up windows and normal windows (panels) in Flex. It's a design choice.