When Apple first demonstrated Expose’ in Panther, I thought it was just another cute special effect.
I mean, we have had Show Desktop, Tile Windows, and Cascade in the Windows world forever. We also have Alt-Tab.
And when you use Tile Windows, you can actually interact with the windows. And the “Undo Tile” option lets you go back to the way things were.
However, Expose’ does have one nice feature. And that is the excellent job it does as an Alt-Tab replacement.
There are several programs that I’ve found for accomplishing this task on Windows - each with its own merits. But for my uses, I’ve found Entbloess to be the best option. You can check out the website for the whole listing of what it does… but I’ll tell you quickly about how I use it.
My mouse has a button between the normal forward/backward browser buttons. It’s normally a “task switch” button which calls up Alt-Tab or Logitech’s replacement utility.
However, I used my Logitech’s mouse driver to set that button to the keyboard shortcut I have for Entbloess. Now, I just push that little button on my mouse, and all the windows on my screen slide into an Expose-like view. And unlike the real Expose, you can even make them interactive (for instance, in one mode you can hold “shift“ and use the mouse to interact with a preview) - though I don't really find that terribly useful, some might. The transition effect is super smooth, and I’ve had no problems with any apps. The only limitation is that minimized windows can’t be shown, but there are several options for handling that. I prefer the option that displays just the captions of minimized windows along the bottom of the Entbloess screen.
The utility is free for its first 100 uses, and insanely cheap to buy. While some users may see no need for this app, if you’re a power user or just like having a slick and efficient desktop, definitely check this one out.
Entbloess