[Announce] Telescope: Graphical task switcher with thumbnails

[Mitrandir]

Telescope is task switching tool for OS2008

(previous thread)
(original thread in russian forum n8xx.com)

What is Telescope?
Simply explained: you press the 'home key' (or F5, the upper hard-ware key on the left side of your tablet) — and all applications you are running shows as thumbnails on a screen and you can there easily select what app to jump to.

Even more: thumbnails are live, so you can easily monitor activity in several application at once.

Telescope is designed to be very fast and lightweight: v1.0 deb package is only 35kb!

How-it-works Video: http://www.youtube.com/user/DenielOl.../2/6FhOf4evqtU (by Kroll)

Acknowledges:
Thanks to Kroll for original idea, graphics design and his continuous support!
Thanks to silvermountain for hosting previous thread.
Thanks to all testers from N8XX.com and talk.maemo.org for precious comments and bugreports!

How to get:
1-click Install:


Stable versions are is in Extras repository. If you're subscribed to Extras-devel, you will receive more often and somewhat buggy development releases.

Telescope in Maemo Downloads: http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2008/telescope/
Please post your comments and stars here!

Our Garage page: https://garage.maemo.org/projects/telescope/
Please report your bugs and feature requests here!

[Snoshrk]

In the Diablo5 thread Kroll pointed me to Telescope as the culprit for my mce.ini file changing w/o my input.

I use MCEdit to enable softpoweroff via the power button, and I kept having to re-enable it, seemingly randomly. (hindsight: whenever Telescope updated)

Is there any way to keep my settings in the mce.ini when telescope updates?

Thanks

PS Thank You for your continued efforts improving the N8x0s!

[Mitrandir]

When telescope is installing it copies your mce.ini into /etc/mce/mce.ini.telescope.bak and then modifies the mce.ini. When it is uninstalling, it copies backup copy back to /etc/mce/mce.ini.
Updating the packet effectively results in its uninstalling and then installing again and after it all your changes to mce.ini is lost

So, you can do one of:

• Remove telescope, apply your changes to mce.ini and then install it again. Telescope will use your 'good' mce.ini as backup and so will not destroy your changes after update.[/*]
• OR Apply your changes to both mce.ini and /etc/mce/mce.ini.telescope.bak. (or you can even just copy mce.ini to mce.ini.telescope.bak, but in this case builtin maemo's taskswitcher will not be ressurected when you uninstall telescope)[/*]

[buurmas]

Originally Posted by Mitrandir

Telescope is designed to be very fast and lightweight: v1.0 deb package is only 35kb!

Let me confirm that it is fast! When I heard about it, I didn't install it b/c I just assumed it was slow. But I think it's actually faster than the Nokia task switcher that is much less useful. Mitrandir's explanation is here.

[tso]

heh, the X equivalent of writing assembly.

[Mitrandir]

BTW, i found plain X programming much less lowlevel and more fun then i thought before

angun33 even wrote me that he found X programming even easier that Gtk

[tso]

well i stand corrected then. Or maybe its simple while interfacing with xlib, but maintain xlib itself is a pain.

[angun33]

Originally Posted by Mitrandir

angun33 even wrote me that he found X programming even easier that Gtk

Hahaha, not sure about that. I think I said I don't have any experience at all on programming using gtk. But after looking your code, I don't find X programming is as scary as I thought. In fact I quite enjoyed them, as it gives you freedom on how you draw things compared to gtk/qt (I know they can do low level drawing, but you have to jump through hoops to get it)

For a normal application though, I do prefer Qt than gtk/X programming

[Mitrandir]

Ok, sorry if i have distorted your words

[jwernerny]

It's a great little app. I really like it.

I have sen one thing that may be an issue. If I am watching a video through "Media Player," the video window is now in front of everything, even if a pop-up opens or I bring up another window. By "video window," I mean the actual video itself, the the containing window that includes the control buttons.

I first noticed this issue after installing Telescope, but I haven't uninstalled Telescope to see if it goes away. (I like the app enough I am willing to live with the problem.)

- John