ApplicationSwitcher
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Snow Leopard 101: Application Switcher Exposé
One of the refinements in Snow Leopard is a slightly under-the-radar trick for using Exposé from the Application Switcher. The Application Switcher is a quick way to jump between open applications, similar to the Windows Alt-Tab (at least that's what it was last time I used Windows). On a Mac, it's triggered by holding down the Command key (next to the spacebar) and then tapping the Tab key. Subsequent taps of the Tab key will start selecting the next app in the row of applications, ordered by their most recent usage (so the last application you switched from is one Tab away). Shift-Tab moves backwards through the list. You can also navigate using the left and right arrow keys ... and, with Snow Leopard you can press the up or down key to show all of the windows of the selected application using Exposé. Once Exposé is up, you can navigate the open windows using the arrow keys, and press Space to temporarily zoom a window for closer inspection. Pressing Return will switch to that application, with the selected window in the foreground. Escape will cancel the whole deal, dropping you back to your current working window. Also, once you've entered Exposé from the Application Switcher, it behaves just like Dock Exposé, and pressing Tab will advance to the next application in the list and Exposé its windows. See the video below for a quick demo, noting that the window zoom is triggered with Space, which isn't shown in the keyboard HUD on the video. Thanks, Alexandre and Jonathan!
Witch 2.0 goes shareware
Peter Maurer has announced the release of Witch 2.0, an update to the handy pop-up window switcher from Many Tricks. Witch lets you to use the keyboard to bring up a bezel listing of the titles of all open windows, and allows you to switch between, "zoom, minimize/deminimize and close windows on the fly."From a user point of view there doesn't seem to be all that much new in Witch (which we covered previously), but behind the scenes the architecture has apparently been radically overhauled to future-proof the application. One notable addition is keyboard shortcuts for jumping directly to a window. They had also intended to add Spaces support but were unable to do so. The other significant change is the move from donationware to shareware status, though anyone who had previously donated for Witch will receive a license.Witch 2.0 is €9.95 and a demo is available.
Mac 101: Drag and drop in the Application Switcher
We've talked previously about the wonders of the Application Switcher, the translucent bar that comes up when you hit ???-Tab. However, thanks to Macworld I realized today that the Leopard version adds a great feature that should have been there a long time ago: drag and drop. In Leopard the application icons in the Application Switcher are live. This means you can grab a file in the Finder, hit ???-Tab, and drop the file on the running application of your choice. So, for instance, you can easily drop a plist on a text editor instead of using the default plist editor. In previous versions of OS X you needed LiteSwitch X ($14.95) to achieve the same thing (though it's true that LiteSwitch X still has a few tricks up its sleeve that the default Application Switcher is missing).
