[lothar56]

I'm looking for some way to switch out of an app, like a game, in case someone talks to me on iChat or something. The normal app switching (command tab) won't do it, nor will any of the shareware things I found online, I wondered if there was an easier way to pause the game and switch over to the finder to see who's talking or whatever. Any ideas?

[Chuckit]

"Doctor, it hurts if I hold my arm like this!"

"Then don't hold your arm like that."

[lothar56]

I'm just saying, when I'm playing Oni and i hear that someone has just talked to me, i have to quit and lose all progress since the last save point. I wondered if there was a better way to do it.

[Chuckit]

Eh, I just don't see why you'd be chatting with someone in the middle of your Oni game.

[leperkuhn]

He's not trying to convince you that you need this feature, he's telling you that he does.

I've found that some games assign apple-m to something helpful, such as minimize, or play in window. (blizzard games, for instance.)

Other than that, no way as far as i know.

[PurpleGiant]

When games take over the entire screen, it tends to be up to the developer whether to allow or block common app-switching methods. It would be nice if cmd-tab would pause a game and switch apps, but very few do this.

Basically, if the game doesn't support it, there isn't much you can do except write to the publisher/author and ask them to include that feature.

[mindwaves]

Command + H

[Apfhex]

I've seen Exposé work in some cases where keyboard commands didn't (though rarely, as this certainly would be annoying in some games).