Viewing all open applicatins at once?

[thoras_herd]

I have seen other Mac users press a button and all their open programmes sort of go small and place themselves on the desktop so you can see what you have open at once. How can I do this please?

 

[BIG D 04]

Yea Expose, just press the 3rd Button on your Mouse or F9 on your Keyboard! It's very handy, very handy indeed!

Edit: That might not be the same settings for your computer. To check or change the settings

Goto System Preferences
Then Dashboard and Expose
Then you can check or change it to anything you want.

 

[thoras_herd]

yay! that's the sausage - i just trie F9 and it worked - I have a Macbook and i did't need to change any settings

 

[NanoBite]

I recently found this info interesting:

Hidden Exposé Features

The Exposé blob is a hidden feature within exposé that sits on your desktop and allows you to invoke Exposé by clicking it.

To enable the blob, enter the following command into the Terminal (Applications/Utilities) and hit return.

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool true

Now you need to relaunch the Dock, which contains the Exposé program. This can be done from Activity Monitor (also in Applications/Utilities) but it is much easier to just type the following into the Terminal and press return.

killall Dock

Now a blue blob should appear on your screen. Notice that it hovers above all other windows, and you can drag it about. It is semi-transparent until you put your mouse over it, when it becomes fully opaque. Now there are a few things you can do with this blob. Just clicking it will do the equivalent of hitting F10 - it will activate Exposé for all windows in the current application. Option-clicking is the same as F9, Exposé for all open windows. You can add in shift (Shift-Click or Shift-Option-Click) to make everything happen in slow motion, just the same as if you were using the F9 and F10 keys.

To remove the blob, repeat the above command but with false at the end.

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool false

As before you will need to relaunch the Dock for the changes to take effect.

killall Dock



I tried it and it is very simple to do.

 

[BIG D 04]

That's a Superb Tip! Fair Play...Defiantly need Rep for that. lol!

Edit: I can't give you Rep, got to spread it around oh well!

I'm going to give that a spin now actually!

 

[NanoBite]

I went to move the Blob and it disappeared totally ... no idea where it went ??

I tried the whole process again by first reversing the process then re-enabling the Blob but it didn't reappear .... I'm stumped.

 

[thoras_herd]

thanks - i'll save that info for wheni am a bit more confident in changing anything

 

[BIG D 04]

I went to move the Blob and it disappeared totally ... no idea where it went ??

I tried the whole process again by first reversing the process then re-enabling the Blob but it didn't reappear .... I'm stumped.

Lol...The exact same thing happened to me. I've tried Relaunching the Dock, Enabling it and Disabling it and Relaunching.

Just aswell I never gave you that Rep

 

[eric]

i did! but i probably owed him some anyway.

 

[NanoBite]

OK, it's buggy and was really a Panther trick so maybe it just doesn't continue to work in Tiger. if you try to move the Blob it vanishes, simple as that. Sorry.

I recently found this info interesting:

Hidden Exposé Features

The Exposé blob is a hidden feature within exposé that sits on your desktop and allows you to invoke Exposé by clicking it.

To enable the blob, enter the following command into the Terminal (Applications/Utilities) and hit return.

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool true

Now you need to relaunch the Dock, which contains the Exposé program. This can be done from Activity Monitor (also in Applications/Utilities) but it is much easier to just type the following into the Terminal and press return.

killall Dock

Now a blue blob should appear on your screen. Notice that it hovers above all other windows, and you can drag it about. It is semi-transparent until you put your mouse over it, when it becomes fully opaque. Now there are a few things you can do with this blob. Just clicking it will do the equivalent of hitting F10 - it will activate Exposé for all windows in the current application. Option-clicking is the same as F9, Exposé for all open windows. You can add in shift (Shift-Click or Shift-Option-Click) to make everything happen in slow motion, just the same as if you were using the F9 and F10 keys.

To remove the blob, repeat the above command but with false at the end.

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool false

As before you will need to relaunch the Dock for the changes to take effect.
killall Dock



I tried it and it is very simple to do.

 

[Benjamindaines]

OK, it's buggy and was really a Panther trick so maybe it just doesn't continue to work in Tiger. if you try to move the Blob it vanishes, simple as that. Sorry.

Hmmm that's something new that's happening in 10.4.9. The blob was fine in .8

No use in reporting the bug to Apple, it's not even supposed to be there..

 

[Aptmunich]

Wow, I'd never even heard of the blob before...

But it disappeared when I clicked it as well...

 

[NanoBite]

Hmmm, I found the Blob. It's hiding from me.

Yesterday, when I clicked on it to drag it and it disappeared, well it apparantly relocated itself in the top left hand part of my Desktop, underneath the menubar.

I only noticed it this morning when I was watching a movie in full screen. I noticed a tiny little round edge of blue poking out from the top left corner when the background of the movie was predominately black.

I tried to drag it into view but it it crawled further away from my cursor and into the corner so I can't get at it. I can still invoke Expose though.

Well at least I've solved the Mystery of the Missing Blob ... Strange.

 

[fiveightandten]

Hmm...does the blob do anything that you can't just set via mouse triggers? I have my machine set so it performs a different expose function for each corner I hover into. I find this invaluable in using the computer every day.

-Nick

 

[NanoBite]

It's just a variation on that, fiveightandten! Stick to your tried and true method and if it works for you then it's fine.

 

[fiveightandten]

It's just a variation on that, fiveightandten! Stick to your tried and true method and if it works for you then it's fine.

Thanks. Yeah. I tried the blob method earlier. I'll stick to the corner triggers.

-Nick