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tdgrmsn · Nov 12, 2002, 09:10 PM

Hello all,

I've been lurking for awhile, first post though. "Hello my name is, and I have a computer problem..." "Hello tdgrmsn..."

Anyways, as the subject says, I'm a bit distraught over the app-switching situation on OS X.

The dock cmd-tabbing is just pathetic, I can't even get in a discussion over that. Apple MUST know it's horrendous, the only reason I can conjure up for them to not change it is the NIH(?) syndrome (Not Invented Here). Not to sure about that acronym, but you get the idea.

I know almost zero Obj-C, and it would take me months to accomplish, but many of you I would guess could do the basic, WinXX/X Window-style (i.e. just app switching - maybe adjustable size or transparency) code in a few hours.

Basically it's a (LIFO) stack it seems to me. One could even copy the general design from any open source window manager I bet. Of course there's that nasty Apple "we own it, the dock gets first dibs on cmd-tab" problem, but Proteron(LiteswitchX) figured a way around it... and I could learn other key combo for a good app.

Liteswitch is decent, and I appreciate their effort, but I'm really hesitant to now pay $15 for what it seems should be a built-in feature, and I don't need/use any of it's other features. I sent a begging letter to Unsanity, as this would be the perfect $7 app for them to make indispensible, but they probably have bigger fish to fry (in their opinion!)

Anyone up to the challenge? I'll get one little jab in and say if this was linux, the app/hack would have existed by public beta and been open-source! :-)

Oh, and I'll do an icon if anyone gets that far!

Thanks, glad to finally be a card-carrying member...

smeger · Nov 13, 2002, 01:07 AM

Already exists - Keyboard Maestro.

tdgrmsn · Nov 13, 2002, 01:54 PM

Yeah I've tried Keyboard Maestro too. Same as LightswitchX, including a bunch of non-essential features, but costs more.

I guess the unix "do one thing and do it well" philosophy didn't make the transition with the Mac OS to unix-land.

Seems time for me to break open proj builder and a good obj-c reference/tutorial.

hayesk · Nov 13, 2002, 02:43 PM

Originally posted by tdgrmsn:
Yeah I've tried Keyboard Maestro too. Same as LightswitchX, including a bunch of non-essential features, but costs more.

I guess the unix "do one thing and do it well" philosophy didn't make the transition with the Mac OS to unix-land.

Seems time for me to break open proj builder and a good obj-c reference/tutorial.

Uhm... there's a free version of Keyboard Maestro, isn't there?

Why do one thing well, if you can do many things well?

Chuckit · Nov 13, 2002, 03:21 PM

Originally posted by tdgrmsn:
Seems time for me to break open proj builder and a good obj-c reference/tutorial.

Just so you know, I don't think the Cocoa frameworks provide the functionality you're talking about, so you're going to need Carbon if you want to program a global hotkey program.

tdgrmsn · Nov 13, 2002, 03:34 PM

Ah! Thanks for the tip. You probably saved me my first wrong path of many to come :-)

I had looked into this a little bit, in relation to virtual desktop managers, so I had looked through Space.app src, ASM src, and similar. If I recall correctly, they were all using Carbon process libraries.

I really hope Apple implements these types of things at the window server level (or coregraphics or wherever appropriate - the window server is "dumb" I think I read).

I'm sure the group responsible for keeping things as simple as possible (the one button mouse group for example) would freak, but maybe they could hide it as a CLI pref? Because it's certainly no engineering feat if you have the src (well for me it would be, but not apple's devs).

Thanks again for the tip.

tdgrmsn · Nov 13, 2002, 03:38 PM

Originally posted by hayesk:

Uhm... there's a free version of Keyboard Maestro, isn't there?

Why do one thing well, if you can do many things well?

Yes you are correct. That's the one I tried. But I'm a curmudgeon [sic?] and prefer the cmd(alt)-tab, horizontal list, which isn't available on the free version.

The only reason I made the DOTADIW unix point was both of these offerings cite all of the other features as much added functionality (it is) and charge more for it (as they are entitled to). My thinking was someone would be willing to sell a stripped down, Just Another App Switcher app for less, b/c it would be less work. Wasn't trying to slight the other apps at all, they're just more than I'm looking for.