Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
are. If you used OS X prior to the Lion release (10.7), you might recall that
this was how Exposé worked (the predecessor of Mission Control).
To do so, open System Preferences, click the Mission Control tab, and remove
the check mark from the Group Windows by Application box.
Unclustering Apps at 100 Percent Preview Size
By hovering the mouse cursor over a cluster of program windows and scrolling
up on a multitouch trackpad or Magic Mouse (or scrolling up the mouse wheel
with other mice), you can cause the cluster to expand, showing more detail
in those behind the main window. Scrolling down again will contract the
windows back to their preview sizes.
This trick can be enhanced with a small tweak to a hidden system setting.
To make clustered windows expand to full size (as if you were viewing them
on the desktop) rather than merely a little larger than they normally are, open
a Terminal window (open Finder, select the Applications list, and then in the
list of applications double-click Terminal within the
UTILITIES
folder), and type
the following:
DEFAULTS WRITE COM.APPLE.DOCK EXPOSE-CLUSTER-SCALE -FLOAT 1;KILLALL DOCK
The changes take effect immediately. A variation of this tweak is to substitute
a value of
0.6
rather than
1
in the line above (after the
-FLOAT
component of the
line). This will cause the windows to expand to a larger size than the default
but not to 100 percent of their normal dimensions.
To undo this tweak later, open a Terminal window, and type the following:
DEFAULTS DELETE COM.APPLE.DOCK EXPOSE-CLUSTER-SCALE;KILLALL DOCK
Press and Hold for Mission Control
Here's a cool trick that works for not only Mission Control but also the
Dashboard or Launchpad.
You might be used to tapping a hotkey once to activate that function and
then tapping it again to deactivate. However, if you press and hold a hotkey,
that particular function will remain active only for as long as you hold down
the key. For example, press and hold the Mission Control/Exposé hotkey,
and it will disappear as soon as you take your finger off the key. Give it a try!
