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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!



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Mac 101 Snow Leopard

One of the refinements in Snow Leopard is a slightly under-the-radar trick for using Exposé from the Application Switcher. The...
 

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cmsb55

@ Quine:
I don't know what communities you are talking about but I know for a fact that Gizmodo says the new task bar is better than the dock.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgizmodo.com%2F5131933%2Fgiz-explains-why-the-windows-7-taskbar-beats-mac-os-xs-dock&ei=05yiStS3MYzusQOnnp2NDw&usg=AFQjCNGmNo4YtnMcqyiwBKPcQOHa5bRG2A&sig2=XjaD3XxmrAaNrrSNggnb1A

September 05 2009 at 1:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
gib

Hey, I just spotted another new feature...

TÚAW has updated their user comments, giving us the new 1/2 star symbol. Since the update ~6 months ago, it always had the old 1/2 icon when random trolling fanboys would post something as terrible as "copying Aero Peak feature". Now if we could have these bad comments fade into unreadable gray like on Engadget or Joystiq, we'd be set.

September 05 2009 at 12:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bonkypal

Command + Tab brings up the application switcher. Once the application switcher is up if you keep holding the command key and press 1 it brings up that application's windows, similar to dock expose or Expose Application windows.

September 05 2009 at 10:04 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Christopher

Hey TUAW! while in Expose mode..if you press APPLE (and the) TILDE key, you can switch from left to right with your application windows...but has this been said yet?

September 05 2009 at 7:58 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
John

Expose might be nice, but i can still navigate quicker by just using CMD+TAB and then CMD+` to scroll through windows. i can't see any scenario where Expose would save me time or less clicks.

September 05 2009 at 7:44 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sebastian

I just discovered, that you can use Exposé in Spaces as well. If you activate the screen where you can see all spaces, click F3 (or use the 4 Finger swipe down) and you see all your windows on all your spaces at once. Pretty cool :)

September 05 2009 at 5:28 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joseph

i love how SL highlights the icon in the dock when using expose. Also a tip when using individual application expose, you can tab through the open apps. It also works if you hold down the icon in the dock or press the magical FKey.

September 05 2009 at 2:03 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joseph

Obvious troll is obvious.

September 05 2009 at 2:01 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
NIck D

I love that the minimized windows now show up in exposé and are selectable. It might have always been there, but I've just noticed that you can start typing the title of the window you want to select and hit return to make the window active - useful if you don't want to move your hands of their home position on the keyboard to get to the arrow keys.

September 04 2009 at 9:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Trent

Apple should add the "Desktop" to expose and cmd-tab ... that's a feature of aero-peek that I do like.

September 04 2009 at 6:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Trent's comment
Josh Kirklin

You can just set a hotkey for showing the desktop in exposé preferences.

September 04 2009 at 7:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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