Implement selectable mouseover thumbnails on icons using multiple windows

[GonzO]

For icons representing an application that has multiple open windows, it would be nice to mouse over them, see thumbnails of each of the open windows, and be able to select one for focus by clicking.

I believe the windows 7 world refers to this functionality as "Aero Peek".

It would be nice to see this in docky one day. Currently, we have to right-click and select the window we want from the list that appears, while also having other options in the same context menu. This is mildly irritating and not as awesome in general.

[GonzO (gonzo)]

I couldn't find a way to tag this as "wishlist," but that's accurate.

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

Try scrolling over the icon too. I find that is quite handy.

[Prominence (graysonisdaman)]

I think this is a pretty major feature that's needed in my opinion

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

Just because Win7 does it doesnt make it a 'major feature thats needed'.

[Danielle Foré (danrabbit)]

I don't know if it's a "major feature that's needed", but it would be nice. personally, I'd like to see it on a click (right, left middle) instead of mouseover though. I think it would be much more helpful than the current list in the right click menu.

[Ivan (trurl-master)]

I agree that this is needed feature, cause current behaviour is not very intuitive in my point of view.
It takes me some time to understand where is my opened windows and how to open only one of them, not all at once, it was looking like a bug. The dark magic of scroll I've discovered only here.

I think separate icon with emblems(and/or ability to set custom icon per folder) for each window is a better solution but this one is also good.

Thanks :)

[Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz)]

I think this will look good.
Hover a icon which has a windowlist with more than one item.
There could a little delay of 2s and all other functions will remain.

Application Icons could be drawn smaller because they most likely be the same for all displayed items.

Look at the mockup...

[The Fiddler (stapostol)]

+1 for the mockup.

AWN displays a similar pop-up on left-click and it is *very* useful. Ideally, this would appear on both the left-click and the system hover timeout. Scrollwheel, right click and middle click should probably remain identical to their current implementations.

Finally, it would be awesome if the pop-ups could include the actual window contents. There is a compiz plugin that implements this, but unfortunately I don't think there's a protocol for this functionality (maybe specific compositors provide an extension for this?)

[GonzO (gonzo)]

+2 for mockup.

Upon further reflection, showing actual thumbnails of the app would be _far_ harder than showing icons. I'm OK with either, as long as there's a window-list-only popup that allows one to select which window to work with. I'm not sure an actual _thumbnail_ is very useful, because when you zoom out far enough, everything tends to look like a square with microscopic writing in it.

[The Fiddler (stapostol)]

It actually helps when using multiple windows, because visual recognition is much faster than reading text. Imagine having multiple Firefox windows (4 or 5 are enough). With thumbnails, you can identify the window you want just by viewing the general page layout.

That said, I would be fine with just the mockup as displayed - it would certainly be an improvement over current behavior.

For best results, middle clicks on a pop-up should close the relevant window (like middle clicks close GTK+ tabs).

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

Thanks for the mockup Rico. I think we might do something similar to that at some point with what we call 'hot seating'. Instead of putting those icons into another window, the dock would be replaced with them. Then each one would give you a right-click menu to do things like min/max/close/restore etc or click on to focus. Also at that point you would get Compiz's window previews separately on each one.

[wire (william-kovoks)]

definitely must have in my opinion... right click and choose window is somehow a little bit tricky and not fast enough (in my opinion for either beginner and more advanced user).. a graphical overview for open windows is much more efficient and faster.

[gunthers (hackmetz)]

That sounds like a really sweet solution there Robert...

For the moment, wheel-select works well enough for me. I think that trick should be added to the wiki (only discovered it here...); would have done it myself but couldn't really find a page to fit it in.

[Mandx (mandx)]

I think there is no need for Docky to worry about thumbnails, Compiz can take care of that just fine. Hovering over a windowlist item (llike in the mockup) would trigger Compiz' thumbnail.

[hsa2 (hsa2)]

Will this feature be implemented in near future?

[mydoghasworms (dumace)]

I would like to see this feature too. It would be very handy, and I think it's an intuitive way of selecting a window if one icon represents multiple windows.

[Wouter van Vliet (me-woutervanvliet)]

I like this discussion, and I like the suggestion. The mockup is good - but not very much required if you ask me. But it can all be a lot easier.

How about a setting that says something along the lines of: "Show the window menu when multiple windows of the application exists"

Basically, the setting would make the right-mouse button behaviour default whenever relevant. Perhaps it should even be settable per application. Skype would benefit from it immensely, where The Gimp would probably less or not at all.

Otherwise; the suggestion of showing the window menu on hover, or left-click hold could also please me. What currently happens to me all the time is that I put one app on the right side of my screen, then I want to put another one on the left side. But when I click that app's icon all windows by that app show up - laying themselves over the app I just positioned so that it could be next to the other one.

[William Huang (huangw327)]

Have there been any updates on this? If not, could someone give an outline of what needs to be done, or even what parts of the docky source code are relevent to this problem?

[mydoghasworms (dumace)]

I just installed Docky on Ubuntu again last night from the repository and the functionality for selecting from multiple windows (i.e. via right-click) is still as it was 3.5 years ago when this was reported. The last poster here seems to be offering to assist. Can anyone provide an update?

[palmerito0 (sandiegobutterflies)]

Sorry for necro, but will this ever be implemented?

It'd be quite nice to have this when hovering over the applications in the dock.