|
DISCLAIMER: All the information contained in this page, or any linked from it, is provided as is, having no warranty or support of any kind, and is used entirely at your own risk.
Panther Part 4. Expose your self (Exposé)
This is one of those typical Apple solutions to a problem that most users either don't know they have or just plain ignore. I call this problem "window clutter" as its very noticeable when you have so many apps running at once, each with multiple open windows, that you can find nothing, nor can you even see your desktop. Just look at this screen shot of my standard desktop, which a prime example of this issue, and this is not even with all the open windows visible.
If you think this is bad, things have actually got much worse, since I originally wrote this part of the Panther review, as I now run dual monitors, and usually with the same or even more windows open on both, most of the time.
Now Apple is not the first vendor to try and produce a fix, although there approach is better than the others. One example of a different solution is the beasts attempt in Windoze 2000, where someone must have given this problem about 30 seconds of thought, to come up with a "minimize all" button. Yes, while this may work it does not let you see whats open or give you the level of control that Exposé does, as all it does is in effect hit the problem with a "big stick" and minimizes everything.
Apples Solution
In typical apple style, someone was not only awake when they looked at this problem, but also gave it some careful thought before actually doing anything about it. So rather than just copying the beasts minimize all button, they came up with Exposé, which gives a level of window control that put simply is impressive.
Exposé has three different modes of operation that can either be controlled by function keys or with the use of what Apple calls "active corners", and the reset of us know as mouse gestures. These three modes are:
1. Tile, Scale and Show all.
This means just what it sounds like, when activated by either the "F9" key or mouse gesture, it will scale all open windows, and tile the results, allowing all open windows to be seen at once. This while its all well and good, is not the limit of this modes functionality, it also allows you to switch to any one of the displayed windows with a single click. This next screen shot shows the results of using this on my desktop.
2. Highlight current application.
In this mode is just like the last one, with one major difference which is that it only works on the currently focused application (the one in the foreground). Its activated via the "F10" function key or mouse gestures. Yes another screen shot, this time showing the results on my machine while I was working in Photoshop.
3. Hide All.
This one is the Apple version of the beasts minimize all button, but with one difference which is that it does not actually minimize anything, just moves all open windows to the screen edges, so showing the desktop. Its activated with either "F11" or via mouse gestures just as with the others. Now this final screen shot shows the results when used on my machine.
Closing Words
When I first heard about this in the pre-release Panther feature leaks, I thought it was just another case of yet another marketing gimmick making its way into a product, and that it would be next to useless to me. Now after several months of using Panther, I can honestly say that I do use it, and while its not something I would be lost without, its something that does make life easier.
Yes I like Exposé, but all is not good, given that mouse gestures are one of my pet hates, and indeed they drove me nuts after only a few minutes of use, as I kept accidentally activating them while doing other things. This may sound bad, but all is not lost, as Apple has made it very easy to disable them via OSX preferences and now I have done this, leaving the three function keys as my preferred activation method.
Links and Related Pages
|