SmallWindows
What it is
Expose clone for Windows 98 and newer.
Where to get it
Current version is 1.0:Screenshots
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Disclaimer
Expose functionality on Windows was a bit tricky to develop, but SmallWindows is somewhat successful at it. However, you'll see plenty of glitches during day-to-day use. There should be significantly fewer glitches in newer versions of Windows (Vista, and 7), but I haven't really tested it.
Over the last couple of years I have completely lost interest in the Windows platform, so this application is no longer actively developed. I also haven't tested the application on Windows Vista or 7 recently. The application comes as is, with no support or guarantees, but feel free to report bugs and feature requests on the Sourceforce website, so that any potential future project developers can fix those.
Project web site
SmallWindows is on SourceForge. Go visit the homepage here.Recent lack of development
I originally started SmallWindows, because I saw a demo of Expose on the Mac and thought it was pretty cool. I didn't have a Mac myself at the time, so I thought:"Hey, that should be easy to duplicate". This resulted in the hobby project:"SmallWindows" back in 2004.
Because I noticed a huge number of downloads, I decided to transform SmallWindows into an $8 commercial application called Admiral back in 2006. Admiral had a couple of other strong features (like fast opening of applications, similar to QuickSilver on the Mac), but it never became particular successful. I think about 100-150 copies were sold over the 12-18 months. A few months after release of Admiral I got my first Mac and started to lose complete interest in the Windows platform. As Admiral never took off, I lost complete desire to continue development.
Admiral kept floating on the Internet for 2007, but I decided to remove it in the middle of 2008. I didn't have the resources or will to support the application. I no longer used Windows on a daily basis, and it was time to look for other projects. There was also the constant fear that Apple would sue me for recreating one of the key features of OSX on the Windows platform.
I still occasionally get emails from users that wish to purchase a copy of Admiral and lately I have just given them free license keys. A couple of users encouraged me to relase Admiral as an open source project to community, which is a little bit ironic considering that Admiral was spun off an open source project.
Sometime ago I searched for my own name on Google, which can be a frightning experience, and discovered that the code of SmallWindows had been used in various places. This was actually very comforting to see, because it means open source really does work. Since the commercial version of this application wasn't really succesful, I am no longer interested in supporting it, and the OSS community seems to benefit from code, I figured it was time to extract the SmallWindows functionality from Admiral and repost it on Sourceforge.
It took a while for me to get around to it, but I finally did.
So today I booted the old laptop that had the codes of both projects and started preparing what I now refer to as SmallWindows 1.0. Basically, it is a dumbed down version of the last version of Admiral with all of the advanced features removed. Amazingly, it only took me about 60 minutes to remove the advanced portions, another 15 to remove all references to Admiral (I hope), 15 minutes to create a new icon, and 30 minutes to remember how the CVS accesss to SourceForge works.
I think it is quite a step up for SmallWindows which really was mostly a proof-of-concept application. The last readme in the SW repository was from 2005(!!!), five years ago. Now it feels much more like a real application.
Enjoy!!!
Jens Egeblad, May 2nd, 2010