Oftentimes, while deep in the throes of working at the computer, you may look up at your screen to find you have 12 emails open, 3 Word documents, an Excel spreadsheet or two, 4 web browser windows, 88 stickies all plastered willy-nilly and goodness knows what else! This can make it all very difficult to find the one window you need when you need it. Luckily the OS X operating system (OS) has, built into it, several very elegant solutions to this most vexing of problems. The one i prefer is a handy little keyboard utility called Application Switcher (or App Switcher if you guys are tight).
Invoking the App Switcher
Simply hold down the Apple key, now hit Tab once. Voilà. You should see a semi-transparent floating window kinda like the one pictured above, this displays an icon for each of the applications currently running on your computer. While still holding the Apple key tap Tab repeatedly, you will see a box cycle through the active apps, select the one you want and the releases the Apple Key. You are magically whisked off to your desired application. Once open, you can also control the Switcher using the mouse, be aware that the App Switcher will respond to movements of the mouse.
The first app selected when you invoke the Switcher is always the one you are working in currently, then they progress starting with the most recently used program moving to the ones you haven’t used in a while. This is really a useful tool for alternating quickly between to applications that you may be working on. You can hit Apple + Tab really quickly to switch to the next app witout even brining up the floating window.
Believe it or not but this is just the tip of the iceberg for this little OS X gem, read on for more advanced and insanely useful tips on using the App Switcher.
Back & Forth
So hold down the Apple key again and start tabbing through the open applications. Ooops, maybe you tabbed right past the application you wanted. Well, you could tab all the way around, OR you could hit the ` (accent/tilde) key directly above the Tab button. Whoa! Now you are going backwards. Apple + Shift + Tab also has the same effect.
Hide & Seek & Smallify & Quit!
Now this is where the App Switcher really becomes a useful tool for organizing your desktop and focusing your work energy. Maybe there are a bunch of apps open that you need but that are just cluttering up your workspace at the moment, like Mail or Stickies. Hold down the Apple key and Tab over to an application and, with your finger still on the Apple key, hit the “H” key (“H” for Hide). Now the selected app is hidden, you haven’t quit it, or even closed any windows, it’s just invisible. If you select the app again from the App Switcher it will return. You can run down the line in the App Switcher hiding each app as you go, just keep holding the Apple key.
Another way to go is instead of hiding the apps with the “H” key you could minimize the apps with the … yup, the “M” key. Watch as they comically get sucked into your Dock like genies whose comeuppance has arrived! Unlike hiding the apps though you can’t un-minimize these using the App Switcher, you’ll need to click on them in the Dock to “unsuck” them.
Lastly and totally not leastly, you can use the App Switcher to run down the line of available apps and quit whichever ones you’d like. Again while holding down Apple, Tab over to the app you’d like to quit and (one finger still on the Apple key) hit the “Q”. Provided all your work is saved the application will just melt away. Again, you can run down the line and fire off “Q”s at all the apps you like till they’re all gone.
One last thought…This One’s For Extra-Credit:
You may have noticed during this tutorial that the App Switcher is great but it’s lacking in one regard: While it’s perfect for zooming around and locating the program you need when you need it it, it doesn’t help you find the window in the program that you desperately desire. This is worth noting and so i thought i’d mention one really nice little application written for the Mac call Witch (think “switch”). Witch does a pretty good knock-off of the App Switcher look and feel (see the screenshot) AND it lists the individual windows in each application. Does a person really need TWO application switching utilities? Well i honestly find call to use both cuz sometimes you feel like a Witch, and sometimes you don’t! Witch is available for free from Many Tricks Software.
Comments are closed.