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Working With Open Windows

Overview

When you have many open windows on your screen at once, it's helpful to be able to make sense of them all so you don't waste time trying to find the window you want. Both operating systems have implemented ways to work with your open windows so wasted time is kept to a minimum.

Mac OS X

OS X's primary and most impressive way of working with windows is called Exposé. Exposé sports three main functions, which are assigned to three function keys by default:

  • Show all open windows (F9)
  • Show all windows of the current application (F10)
  • Slide all open windows out of the way to view the desktop (F11)

When you invoke the first command, all open windows will smoothly scale down in size until they can all be seen without overlapping each other, essentially creating huge thumbnails that are easily idetified. Windows continue to update in real time, so videos continue playing, webpages continue loading, etc. When you move your mouse over a window thumbnail, its title is displayed in large text in the center.


Move your mouse over the above image to invoke Exposé (animation not shown)

The second command behaves the same way, only it is restricted just to windows of the current application. That way, if you know the application of the window that you want, you can exclude all other applications' windows (they will be dimmed in the background). This results in larger thumbnails of the windows of the application you want, making them more easily identified. You can hit tab to cycle through windows on an application basis.

The third command will make all open windows slide off to the screen edges, revealing the desktop underneath.

You can change the function keys assigned to all three of these actions. In addition, you can assign them to screen corners ("bump" a corner of your screen with the mouse to invoke the Exposé action) or secondary mouse buttons.

As visually impressive as Exposé is, it suffers from some problems. First, the higher the number of open windows on your screen, the smaller each window's thumbnail becomes. With a very large number of open windows, the thumbnails will be too small to differentiate between each other; you'll need to identify windows by their title by moving your mouse over each one individually. Second, Exposé becomes largely useless when working with many documents that look very similar (i.e., word processing documents). At the thumbnails' reduced size, the document title could prove to be more helpful than its image. Third, Exposé does not affect minimized or hidden windows; while this is understandable, some users would surely prefer an option. Finally, Exposé's screen corners have no built-in delay, meaning it's easy to accidentally invoke it.

Hitting -tab will present huge icons of all open applications; select one to bring all of that application's windows to the front.

Windows XP

XP provides two ways to access open windows:

  • Hit alt-tab
  • Click on the window's button in the taskbar

Alt-tab will present a window that lists all open windows and the icons of their respective applications:

Under heavier usage, however, this can prove frustrating, especially when working with multiple documents of the same application (their icons will be identical, and you'll need to select each one to see its name).

To improve upon this basic functionality, Microsoft also offers an Alt-tab Replacement PowerToy:

With this PowerToy, in addition to seeing the icon of the application window you are switching to, you will also see a preview of the page. This helps particularly when multiple sessions of an application are open.

Once installed, you will see large window thumbnails as you select each item:

Strangely, minimized windows will appear just as their titlebar in the thumbnail, making the thumbnail itself useless.

XP also provides a "show desktop" command from a button located in the Quick Launch bar. Click the button to hide all open windows and view the desktop; click again to unhide.

Conclusion

Mac OS X's Exposé is impressive, both visually and functionally. Although it suffers from some usability issues, its overall implementation is a boon to users who work with many open windows and applications. Its functions can be accessed through customizable keystrokes, screen corners, or mouse buttons, letting users configure it to best suit their needs. OS X's command-tab function sports enormous icons that make it easy to identify applications.

Windows XP's alt-tab pales in comparison due to its lack of window thumbnails and no configurable options. Microsoft's free Alt-tab Replacement PowerToy offers a substantial improvement.

Mac OS X: 8
Windows XP: 4 (6)

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