Skippy is what (I think) is best described as a full-screen task-switcher for X11. It tries to provide an alternative when taskbars or regular task-switchers aren't the most efficient way of switching tasks (like when you have a lot of applications open). When activated (currently only through a hotkey), it will arrange and scale snapshots of all windows on the current desktop and it'll let you pick a window using a mouse or a keyboard. Yes, this is also what expocity and Apple's Expose do (yeah, I know, Expose does more than just this), but I don't like metacity (expocity is a 'hacked up' version of that) and I don't have a Mac.
Skippy depends on:
- An X11R6 server
- Xft - the X Font library
- Imlib2 (only for 'regular' Skippy, not skippy-XD)
- XRender, XComposite, XDamage and XFixes extensions (only for Skippy-XD)
- A NETWM or GNOME WM Specs compliant window-manager.
So far, it's been sucessfully tested using OpenBox-3.2, Fluxbox-0.9.9 (thanks daelstorm!), XFWM4 (thanks SeeSchloss!), Metacity (thanks SmackleFunky!), WindowMaker (thanks SuperBFG7!), IceWM (thanks Tomasz Torcz!), PekWM (thanks Josh Chaney!), Waimea (thanks Gad 'make-up-your-mind' Kadosh!) and KWin (no, BlackBox and ion aren't supported).
Note: if you want to use Skippy with WindowMaker, make sure WindowMaker is compiled with gnome support.
Another note: If you use KDE, Skippy might have trouble grabbing the F11 key. You can make it bind to a different key in the config file (see the skippyrc-default file that's in the tarball). Scroll_Lock is reported to work (thanks Dmitriy!).
Because of the way standard X11 works, Skippy has to raise all windows before it can take a snapshot. If there's something that obscures the window (like a window in a layer above it), Skippy won't be able to make a snapshot correctly.
Skippy-XD is a version of Skippy that uses the new XDamage, XComposite and XFixes extensions (found in FreeDesktop.org's Xserver project) to provide you with 'live' versions of the windows. Exciting, isn't it?
Skippy's pretty easy to use. Just compile (and optionally install) it, and press the hotkey (the default hotkey is F11). Then choose a window with either the keyboard (you can use up, down, left and right to navigate) or the mouse (just hover over a window) and activate it by pressing the left mouse button or the return or spacebar key.
There are also two or three modifiers you can use with the hotkey: hold Control and Skippy (not used in Skippy-XD) will update the snapshots of all the windows. Hold Mod1 (aka the alt key) and skippy will only show the windows of the currently focused window's window group (like, all of gimp's windows, or all of kopete's windows), and if Skippy or Skippy-XD is compiled with Xinerama support and you have several heads, hold shift while pressing the hotkey to make it show the windows on all heads.
- Skippy: skippy-0.5.0.tar.bz2 (23722 bytes) - Release name: "The two-headed monster" (changelog)
- Skippy-XD: skippy-xd-0.5.0.tar.bz2 (23970 bytes) - Release name: "Damage, Inc." (changelog)
- Skippy's freshmeat project page
- Skippy on the gentoo forums
- Skippy RPMs for SuSE (note: not official)
- Skippy review in polish (I think...)
- Skippy on freshports
- Skippy on KDE-Look.org
- Skippy on friet wagd bankje (dutch)
... your (preferably not overly commercial) skippy-related link here? Drop me a note!