Overview: A native macOS alternative to EVE-O Preview (v0.6.0-alpha)


Latest Version:
v0.6.0-alpha

Updates and Support:
Overview Discord Server

What is Overview?

  • A native macOS app for creating floating previews of your EVE clients (or any other windows)
  • YouTube Demo Video (v0.2.0-alpha shown, with many updates added since)
  • Full list of features and settings available in the readme

Current Status:

  • Alpha stage, with bugs expected
  • Performance is suboptimal
  • Approaching feature parity with Eve-O Preview

System Requirements:

  • macOS Ventura (macOS 13) or later

Try it Out:

If you’re interested in trying it out or following the development, check out the GitHub repo. I’m always looking for feedback and feature requests!

Acknowledgments:

A huge thank you to all the creators and maintainers of EVE-O Preview. Your work has been the inspiration for Overview and has greatly benefited the EVE community. A full list of contributors can be found on the GitHub readme.

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Release v0.3.1-alpha · williamcpierce/Overview

  • Overview now works with Fixed Window full-screen windows for Eve
  • Added optional overlays for window title (character name) and a border around the active window (toggles to enable these are in settings)

Please report any bugs here or on GitHub Issues and I’ll get them fixed as soon as I can!

Dang - I was really excited to try this out - but no support below MacOS 14.x. Good luck in any event!

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Thanks for letting me know, I’m sorry to hear this is blocking for you!

I would ideally like to have compatibility back to macOS 12.3 (the minimum requirement for the core API I use), and if there are more people who report this same issue I may bump addressing this up in priority, but I can’t promise anything. My personal devices are all on macOS 15 so it’s hard to really test compatibility myself.

I have some open issues on the GitHub for this, and any updates/progress I make will be posted there if you want to follow along:

Yeah, sorry - my system is kind of EOL at this point (BigSur is the most I can run on it).

Release v0.4.1-alpha · williamcpierce/Overview

  • :fire::keyboard: HOTKEYS :keyboard::fire: added to bring specific Eve windows into focus (matching on title)
  • Settings window updated to modern styling with tabs
  • Added refresh button to selection view to refresh window list
  • Added customization options to focus border and window title overlays
  • Added setting to show Overview windows in Mission Control
  • Added setting to enable window alignment help in edit mode

Please report any bugs here or on GitHub Issues and I’ll get them fixed as soon as I can!

Giving this a try out. Using a Mac Studio (M2 Ultra) setup.

So far it’s running good. The performance is okay with 2-4 clients total. It gets really buggy and starts to freeze adding more than 4 total clients.

It would be nice though if I am say running 3 clients total to only show the 2 non active windows in the preview area and for the preview to update dynamically when you switch things around from one to the next.

Also Title overlay even when enabled doesn’t actually work to overlay the title of the screen on the preview.

Overall though it is better than nothing and look forward to see additional support being built and hopefully some functionality with things like 12.7.x support as I do also have another older system I would like to use this on.

Keep it up!

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Love to see it. This 3rd party tool is what Mac users have been waiting for.

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Release v0.4.2-alpha · williamcpierce/Overview

  • Various bugs with title and focus border overlays fixed
  • Title overlays now work properly across spaces
  • Focus border color is now properly saved across sessions

Please report any bugs here or on GitHub Issues and I’ll get them fixed as soon as I can!

Glad you were able to give it a try!

Title Overlay Bugs
Check out the latest release, I’ve fixed a bunch of overlay related bugs that should hopefully resolve your issue Release v0.4.2-alpha · williamcpierce/Overview · GitHub

Dynamic Previews
I’m tracking your request here, but it might be a bit until I can add this. I would like to, since this is a feature of EVE-O Preview that Overview does not yet support. Dynamic preview layouts per-client · Issue #98 · williamcpierce/Overview · GitHub

Performance
I track general performance issues here, and I’m making slight performance improvements with every release. Performance issue not otherwise specified · Issue #91 · williamcpierce/Overview · GitHub
Have you tried lowering the frame rate? That can help moderately with performance, but probably won’t solve all issues. Still working on optimizing for large numbers of clients.

I have updated to the newest Release and the Title bug seems to be gone now which is good.

I can understand the Dynamic previews. It would be a nice half but not a necessity at this time so I will stay tuned as to those updates as they happen.

I did lower the Frame Rate down and gained some performance increases. I assume this will get better with time and as you can use the encoding engines for the SOC as a native process.

One of the things that I found that is a real pain currently is when I close out of the app and relaunch it I have to reset size and position of every preview screen I use which is a Huge time consuming issue. Isn’t there an effective and easy method to just save a profile that can recall these variables when the client is launched and perhaps a global hot key that refreshes the dropdown list of all active preview windows at once rather than having to click on the refresh for each one to update the dropdown list?

To address this issue currently I had to create a wallpaper background with the grid I use. Trying to resize things perfectly each time I have to close down the app and re-launch it becomes very difficult, so having a way to save the layouts would be absolutely amazing.

Release v0.4.3-alpha · williamcpierce/Overview

  • Preview window sizes now persist between sessions
  • Preview selection view properly reinitializes when source window is closed
  • Edit mode now takes effect more quickly
  • Performance improvements to preview window lifecycle

Please report any bugs here or on GitHub Issues and I’ll get them fixed as soon as I can!

Thanks for the update, and I’m glad the title and performance fixes/suggestions have helped! Definitely still more work to do, especially when it comes to performance.

Points well taken on window persistence and layouts, I’ve gotten feedback consistently on this and it’s one of my top priorities.
There actually should be some basic persistence of window locations (and now sizes, in the latest v0.4.3-alpha version), but this seems to be broken for some people. I’m tracking that particular issue here: Preview window locations are reset on app restart · Issue #102 · williamcpierce/Overview · GitHub
As for profiles, that’s being tracked here: Support of profiles (e.g. work, eve etc.) · Issue #28 · williamcpierce/Overview · GitHub

The refresh button applying to all windows is a new request, but definitely doable and I can see the reason why it would be helpful.
I’ve added an issue for that here: Window list refresh should apply to all preview windows · Issue #108 · williamcpierce/Overview · GitHub

Hope I can follow up soon with some progress on all these issues!

Release v0.5.0-alpha · williamcpierce/Overview

  • Added fullscreen windows and windows in other spaces to the window selection picker
  • Added a “Filter” settings tab to add applications (by name) to either include or exclude from the window selection picker
  • Added options to hide previews for inactive applications and/or active windows
  • Added option to close preview when source window is closed
  • Updated window selection picker to refresh all pickers when any refresh button is clicked (@Zed_Al_thor this should resolve one of your issues)

Please report any bugs here or on GitHub Issues and I’ll get them fixed as soon as I can!

Release v0.5.1-alpha · williamcpierce/Overview

  • Fixed a typo unintentionally linking settings for edit mode alignment and filter blocklist
  • Preview no longer resets briefly to default aspect ratio when selecting a window to preview

Please report any bugs here or on GitHub Issues and I’ll get them fixed as soon as I can!

Release v0.5.2-alpha · williamcpierce/Overview

Bug Fixes:

  • Complete overhaul of preview window restoration logic to make it more reliable and prepare for more advanced window management. Bugs are expected with this change.
  • Preview window title bar no longer flashes on preview window creation.
  • Settings tabs no longer intermittently freeze.
  • Hotkey binding selection dropdown now matches preview selection view.

Features:

  • Added visual indicator for edit mode.
  • Removed start preview button, now previews start immediately on selection.

Please report any bugs here or on GitHub Issues and I’ll get them fixed as soon as I can!

Preview window restoration has been totally revamped in v0.5.2-alpha – might have som new bugs, but it should fix your issue with window restoration @Zed_Al_thor

Thanks giving it a test out this week will let you know how it works out.

Release v0.6.0-alpha · williamcpierce/Overview

v0.6.0-alpha is out and ready for testing! Huge shout out to my brother (and new collaborator) for doing a TON of work behind the scenes to improve testing, identify bugs, and design and add new features.

Features:

  • Complete overhaul of settings management system, on the front and back ends
  • Extended support to Ventura (macOS 13) – please let me know if you have a machine to help test this on
  • Converted to menubar application
  • Added window shadow option for better visual depth
  • Matched edit mode indicator color to focus border color
  • Improved window alignment help system to no longer require a setting or compromise always-on-top behavior
  • Added overlaid close button on previews in edit mode
  • Refreshed source window selection interface design
  • Added option to control automatic window creation at startup
  • Implemented enforced minimum window sizes to avoid edge cases

Bug Fixes:

  • Resolved multiple issues with application filtering system, especially related to first launch and settings resets
  • Fixed window restore position issues when windows are near the status bar
  • Ensured proper cleanup of capture resources when closing previews
  • Settings window now floats on top of preview windows properly
  • Fixed restoration behavior when previews are closed mid-session

New bugs are expected, especially with so many changes, so please keep the bug reports coming! Report issues on my Discord, on GitHub, or here

:rotating_light: I broke prod :rotating_light:
In trying to resolve the “unidentified developer” warning on installation, I accidentally made it way worse. Sorry!

Incident Report
Cause:
The previous development certificate used to sign the installable app was invalidated

Impact:
NEW installations of OLD installable app files will result in a “Malware Blocked” alert

Resolution:

  • All old installable app files have been deleted from the releases page.
  • The installable app file for the v0.6.0-alpha release has been replaced with a fixed version
  • When everyone installs the next version of Overview (now named “Overview-alpha”), they will need to re-allow screen recording permissions