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witch posts

Filed under: Software, Productivity

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.

Filed under: Features, Cool tools, How-tos, Tips and tricks, Ask TUAW

Ask TUAW: DVD into iMovie, Dialogs with Keyboard and More

Last week Ask TUAW took a little unplanned vacation, but it's back this week none the worse for wear. This time we'll be taking up questions from two weeks ago on getting video from a home DVD into iMovie, dismissing dialog boxes using the keyboard rather than the mouse, printing CD case labels, and upgrading older Macs to 802.11n. As always, readers are invited to offer their own comments and suggestion, as well as submit more questions for next week. And now to this week's questions...

Continue readingAsk TUAW: DVD into iMovie, Dialogs with Keyboard and More

Filed under: OS, Software, Cool tools

Witch - bring Windows app switching to Mac OS X


The way that applications, windows and our OS behave is a subject of much debate. Toss some life-long switchers into the mix and boy-howdy, you got yourself the nerd version of a bar fight. One of these much debated behaviors between Mac OS X and Windows is how to handle switching between applications and their windows. Mac OS X focuses on applications - when you press cmd + tab, you can switch between all of your open applications, but you have to press cmd + ` in each app to cycle between the windows specific to said app. The Windows switcher, on the other hand, doesn't see applications, only windows. Pressing the switching keystroke equivalent of alt + tab offers a selection of all open windows, including the 20 Word documents and 5 IE sessions you have running.

For the sake of this post, I'm not necessarily saying one is better than the other, and the subject of why this difference exists is a usability discussion best left for another day. I simply wanted to lay some context for Witch, a Windows-like application switcher from Peter Maurer (of Butler and the original Textpander/TextExpander fame) that fuses window-centric switching with some of the nice perks of Mac OS X. Not only can you switch between windows, just like on, uh, Windows, but you can also do things like bringing all minimized windows to the front or even close those minimized windows without having to bring them to the front.

Witch, like many of Peter's apps, is donationware. However, if you get attached to it and don't want it to go the way of TextExpander (or if you simply want to give a developer his much-due credit), I highly recommend you donate for Peter's fine work.

[via Lifehacker]

Tip of the Day

F11 moves all your windows off the screen so you can quickly glance at your desktop. F10 shows you every open window in an application. F9 shows every open window for every application that isn't hidden or in the dock.


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