Witch - A keyboard solution for managing windows

Feb 20, '05 10:02:00AM

Contributed by: robg

Witch icon The macosxhints Rating:
8 of 10
[Score: 8 out of 10]

Disclaimer (and Background): This week's PotW is the result of a suggestion I made to Peter Maurer, author of Butler, probably my favorite OS X usability enhancement tool. It had always bothered me that you could minimize a window to the dock without touching the mouse (Command-M in most applications), yet you had to mouse down to the dock and drag back and forth in order to then find a particular minimized window. I asked Peter if it were possible to write a Butler extension that would add in a "minimized window" management hot key. If I'm recalling correctly, less than two days later, the first version of Witch was in my in-box. Aside from providing the creative spark, I've got no direct involvement in this product...

As usual with Peter's stuff, he's gone well beyond the basics of a minimized window manager with Witch. Witch is a full-blown enhanced Command-Tab switcher, with a ton of additional features. Instead of merely switching apps, you can switch directly to a window within an application. You can set hot keys to switch between windows in various spots: all applications, only minimized (how I primarily use it), non-minimized, frontmost app, frontmost app minimized, and frontmost app non-minimized. Whew! I just leave the first two choices enabled; I've set Control-Option-Tab (and Backtick) to be my "all windows" switcher forwards (and backwards), and Control-Command Taqb (and Backtick, again, for backwards) for managing minimized windows. I've left the other options disabled.

After installing and activating Witch, you can now manage minimized windows with a hotkey. Press your chosen key combo, and your minimized windows will appear in a fully customizable pop-up (font size, colors, shadows, or choose from some pre-created settings). Select the window you wish to de-minimize, and it slides out of the dock, ready for use. You can also do things like add a "Cancel" item in case you change your mind, or an "Activation" item, so Witch can activate faceless background apps. The window list can be sorted by the application's name, launch order, "last use order," or by the window activity order (which will actually inter-leave application names, based on how you've been using the various open windows).

Witch isn't perfect, mainly due to some OS X limitations. First, applications that draw windows in non-standard ways (such as Circus Ponies' Notebook) don't show in the switcher. Second, if you have hidden an application, and that application does *not* have any minimized windows, then it will also not show in the switcher. If it's hidden with a minimized window, though, it will. Since I primarily use Witch to manage minimized windows, these limitations don't bother me too much -- and I love the convenience of unminimizing a window from a pop-up list. It's about 100 times faster than the old "visit the dock and scroll" method, and means I'm actually using minimize again as a means of organizing my workflow.

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Mac OS X Hints
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