Here are some ideas for future versions of Peek-a-Boo.
Process Sets
A new menu would appear in the menu bar, with a name something like 窶弃rocess Sets.窶 A Process Set is the distinct set of processes running at a particular instant. For example, my Engineering Lab Report process set might include MatLab, a word processor, a paint program, Kermit (a communications program that lets me connect to me HP48SX calculator), Finder, and Peek-a-Boo (of course). If I were to tell Peek-a-Boo that I want to bring up my Engineering Lab Report process set, it would kill all processes not in the process set and launch the aforementioned processes that are in the process set. This feature will kind of let you set up customized 窶彳nvironments窶 based on what you're going to be working on. I could use the Engineering Lab Report process set, a Development process set (Think C, Think Reference, ResEdit), a Writing process set (word processor, thesaurus), and maybe a bare-bones process set (just Finder and Peek-a-Boo) that would effectively kill all my other running processes.
Improved CPU History Windows
This would make CPU history windows automatically pop up in a row or a column. A CPU history window would 窶徇agically窶 appear for each running process.
Additional features would be: allow the user to specify applications that would not show up in this list; allow the user to move a history window from the column and from then on the window would 窶徭tick窶 at the new location; perhaps only include selected applications in the 窶徇agic窶 column.
MemGraph History
This would be similar to the CPU History windows implemented in Peek-a-Boo v1.1. The reason I didn't implement it in this version is because it's just not too interesting, on the whole. The history windows are 50 pixels high, and a change in free memory of 2% is pretty huge and doesn't happen that often. I'm considering using some skanky relative to a log scale or something that would let you see minor changes in free memory very easily, yet still be useful for larger changes in free memory.
Color
Currently all of Peek-a-Boo is in black and white. I'd like to make the whole thing use pretty colors.
Work Around Process Manager Bug
If only Peek-a-Boo and Finder are running, if the Update (ticks) is set low enough, and if Peek-a-Boo is in the foreground, you will see the Process Manager updating bug. The Process Manager only updates the ActiveTicks field for a process when it is getting switched out (either a major or a minor switch). What this means, essentially, is that if no background processes use any CPU time during a given interval, Peek-a-Boo will not be able to tell that it itself used CPU time. Thus the CPU% bar graph and the CPU History window will occasionally show 0% when it should be 100%. There have been several workarounds suggested to me, and the one I'm leaning towards is simply to assign Peek-a-Boo's CPU time to be 100% minus the total of all the other processes' CPU time. This is undoubtedly a kludge, but it's a simple way around this Process Manager bug. An even simpler (yet hokier) way around the problem is to check and see if Peek-a-Boo has used zero CPU time. If that's what the Process Manager says, I may be able to assume that the bug has kicked in, and force Peek-a-Boo's CPU usage to 100%.
Better 窶廴ode窶 Display
Currently, the 窶廴ode窶 display in Peek-a-Boo's main window isn't terribly intuitive--it just returns the long integer straight from the Process Manager. I'd like to have maybe little check marks for each attribute (such as 窶廣pple Event Aware,窶 窶廝ackground Only,窶 etc.) that appear in the main window instead of the longint.
Notes
Let me know what you think about these ideas, and if you have other ideas for future features, let me know those too.
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