juliendelplanque / mirage

A windows switcher with a previewer for Pharo.

Mirage

Install

Stable version

To install the stable version, you can simply use the Catalog browser and search for 'WindowsPreviewer' or evaluate the following code snippet:

Pharo 6.1

Metacello new
    repository: 'github://JulienDelplanque/Mirage:v1.0.0/src';
    baseline: 'Mirage';
    load

Pharo 7.x

Metacello new
    repository: 'github://JulienDelplanque/Mirage:v2.1.0/src';
    baseline: 'Mirage';
    load

Development version (Pharo 8.0)

Simply evaluate the following code snippet:

Metacello new
    repository: 'github://JulienDelplanque/Mirage:dev/src';
    baseline: 'Mirage';
    load

Version management

This project use semantic versionning to define the releases. This mean that each stable release of the project will get associate a version number of the form vX.Y.Z.

• X define the major version number
• Y define the minor version number
• Z define the patch version number

When a release contains only bug fixes, the patch number increase. When the release contains new features backward compatibles, the minor version increase. When the release contains breaking changes, the major version increase.

Thus, it should be safe to depend on a fixed major version and moving minor version of this project.

Setup

Go to the 'Settings browser' and check the 'Activate' button in 'Mirage' subgroup of 'Tools' group. Then, you can choose the view you want to use by checking the buttons corresponding.

• If the default shortcut to open the previewer does not fit with you, you can change it from settings as well.
• It is also possible to change the order used to display windows in the previewer by selecting one the method in "Windows management" setting.

How to use

Once you activated Mirage in the 'Settings browser' hit 'Ctrl+Tab' to open the previewer. You can now use left/right arrow to choose a window and hit the space key to open it.

Key	Purpose
(Ctrl/Shift)+Tab	Open the previewer (Ctrl for Linux, Shift for Windows and Mac OS).
Left arrow	Select window on the left of the current window.
Right arrow/Tab	Select the window on the right of the current window.
Space/Enter	Set the window selected in the previewer on top.
Esc	Quit the windows previewer without changing the current window.

Developers documentation

The wiki holds all the documentation needed to contribute to the project.

If you want to contribute to this project, please follow the contribution guidelines.

Here are some useful links:

• Creating your own view
• Add a windows ordering method

mirage's Issues

Use Animation framework to get better animation when switching windows

See the repository: http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~ThibaultRaffaillac/Animation

Instance of SmallInteger did not understand #asNanoSeconds in P7

Trying to open the Pharo settings for Mirage results in a walkback: Instance of SmallInteger did not understand #asNanoSeconds

I can't see what the obvious fix is here.

Blinking window

It appears when a collapsed window's thumbnail is updated.

To fix it, just check if the window is collapsed before updating the thumbnail.
If so, don't update the thumbnail (if it is collapsed, the thumbnail of the window didn't changed).

Add description on how to activate Mirage from settings in Pharo Catalog Browser's description

Fix Mirage-Highlighter when a window is collapsed

A rectangle that do not match with the position of the window appears on the screen.

Mirage is queuing up multiple #delaySemaphore waits (which freezes Pharo 7)

I keep getting freezes (as in lockups) in my Pharo7 image - and I just noticed that my process browser has 18 delaySemaphore wait operations... that can't be good can it?

Refresh thumbnails

Thumbnails of windows gets old and do not represent the window anymore after a certain time...

Implementing a system to update these thumbnails would be cool.

But regenerating all thumbnails at the same time takes time.

Is it possible Mirage causes the font glitch but in P7?

Lots of people are reporting a font glitch issue in Pharo - and it really is noticable in P7 where suddenly characters will be garbled on the screen. This seems to magnify when using Mirage - where I seem to get it every few minutes when Mirage is loaded in a small image (I am loading into OSX 64bit, 7.0.2) - then I load the dev version and then finally my Exercism project (also quite small - but it does drag in Mocketry).

As Mirage, does have an option to refresh thumbnails every x seconds - I wonder if this might exacperate this problem somehow?

I mention this in case it rings any bells.

The workaround is to save your image (or tick/untick trutype fonts in settings) - and this use to be a one off without Mirage loaded, but I find I have to save every 10-20 mins to cure it. (this is empirical, and needs more exploration)

Shortcut does not work

The default shortcut (shift-tab) doesn't trigger Mirage. Instead, tab characters get handled by whatever widget has the focus.

Can't save the Open Shortcut

In Pharo 7, you can't seem to change the open shortcut from Shift-Tab to anything else. If you type something in, and then try to save it it just adds meta-s as an additional shortcut.

Error enabling Mirage on Pharo 7

Hi @juliendelplanque,

I got an error opening the settings after loading Mirage on latest Pharo 7 rc1

MIModel>topWindowIn: has undeclared class ENoTopWindow in P7

I noticed that Pharo7 reports this method has an undeclared error

topWindowIn: aWorldMorph
^ (self windowsIn: aWorldMorph)
detect: #isTopWindow
ifNone: [ ENoTopWindow signal ]

A system to determinate the order of the views stacked on the background should exists.

Typo in the installation instructions for Pharo 7

To install in Pharo 7, use:

Metacello new
    repository: 'github://JulienDelplanque/Mirage:v2.1.0/src';
    baseline: 'Mirage';
    load

The tag is "v2.1.0", not "2.1.0".

Windows-like flipping

I tried Mirage finally and it is a big improvement. However, I was hoping to get it to work like Windows Alt-Tab (aka Flip) function which apparently is also in KDE, MacOS, iOS and Gnome.

First, I couldn't figure out how quickly to "go back to the last window I was in." The list of windows is absolute (rather than z-order), which seems to be part of the problem. Aha - I found the "World order" windows management setting.

As a use-case, I want to toggle between a Browser window and a Playground, because I'm copying/pasting bits of code. In Windows, you just hit "Alt-Tab-Tab (then release Alt)" and you can switch very quickly back and forth between two Windows. It's done with one hand.

In Mirage, there are many more keystrokes, and it also takes two hands:

1. Ctrl-Tab (left hand, then you let go of Ctrl).
2. Move (right hand) to arrow keys
3. Press arrow keys until you find the window you want.
4. Once you've highlighted the window, press return to select it.

So, I think it's basically asking for 1 thing to make it super ergonomic:

1. Ctrl-Tab (or the key you configure) enters the switching mode, whereas releasing Ctrl exits it (maybe not possible in Pharo?). Successive Tab (or shift-Tab) without releasing Ctrl moves forward (or back) in the windows list.