November 20, 2007
Switching between open windows on a Mac by using Apple ~ or Exposé
I was asked this question today:
I often work with several docs open form the same program (i.e. 5 different word docs open at a time). Is there an easy/key command way to go between these?
apple/tab allows me to go from one open program to another. is there an equivalent for docs within a program?
Yes, there is! It’s apple + ` (the tilda ~ key).
The tilda key is found in slightly different places on the Mac laptops. On my MacBook Pro it’s right at the bottom left, just to the right of the shift key and just above the ctrl key. On my iBook it’s on the top left.
Exposé is a useful utility introduced in OS 10.3 which lets you do all sorts of interesting things just by hitting function keys (like F11, which moves all open windows out of the way and shows your desktop). F10 shows all open application windows – an alternative to using Apple and ~
like so:
You can then move your mouse over the different windows; click on one and it’ll bring it to the front.
10.4 lets us use different ways of getting at exposé, like moving your cursor to the corners of your screen. If I move my cursor to the bottom left corner Exposé shows me my desktop, like so:
If you have an Apple mouse you can also link exposé operations to different parts of the mouse. I link my side click to show application windows.
So play around with your exposé options and amaze your Windows friends!
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Roger Saner is a web platform developer (using 
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