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Written by Tom Mordasky
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Wednesday, 09 August 2006 |
8.5 goodness in OS X
 Way back in 1998 when OS 8.5 came out, one of my favorite new features was the Application Switcher, a little pull off tab that became a floating window. It displayed all of your open applications and allowed for quick switching between them. You could drag it wherever you wanted, make it big or small, even turn it on its side. Wow! Those days may be long gone but should they be entirely forgotten? The application switcher has not become extinct. It has simply evolved. OSX’s built in switcher is simple, elegant and straight forward. It does, however, have some competition. In this week’s dotAPP, we look at two alternative application managers to see how they stack up. Perhaps we can have OS 8.5 goodness in an OS X world.
“Command Tab” is the default key command to summon Apple’s switcher. It bears little resemblance to its Classic ancestor. It does not anchor to any menu bar, nor does it float in a corner waiting to be used. It has no support for drag and drop. It appears only when summoned and lingers only so long as it is needed. It can scroll forward and backward through open apps. It can quit a running app as well. It basically speaks only when spoken too. It is simple and efficient, but should it do more?
ASM
 ASM is a shareware Preference Pane distributed by Frank Vercruesse. Registration is $15 and the app allows a 6 day demo. Once installed, its appearance closely mimics its classic ancestor, taking the form of a tiny icon on the far right of the menu bar. The Menu item can show the icon of the front most app, just like the classic menu. It can be preferenced to show the application’s name as well, also like the classic version. It cannot, however, be “torn off” into a floating palette. It features a fairly customizable appearance, so both “menu misers” (12” Powerbooks) and those with “menu bar to burn” (30” Cinema Displays) will be happy.
The contents of the menu itself can also be adjusted, featuring support for dock style contextual menus to speed navigation of application features. Interestingly, it can also affect the default behavior of windows. The “Classic Mode” causes all of an application’s open windows to move to the front of the finder whenever that app is selected. The “Single App” mode will hide all background apps, leaving only the front most visible.
ASM does not affect the default switcher in OSX but is rather an alternative that runs alongside of it. It is clean overall and I encountered no bugs or problems to speak of. The web site is fairly sparse and little or no help or feature documentation is readily available. It does not support drag and drop nor was I able to discover any key commands to speed its interface. It’s a nice little app for those who miss some of the Classic way of doing things. Unfortunately, the overall lack of documentation forces me to rate it lower than it would otherwise deserve.
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The Good: Brings back the Classic style of both application switching and window behavior, Good customization features.
The Bad: Cannot drag and drop files, Cannot float on its own like its Classic ancestor. No documentation.
The Skinny: It’s a nice app, but restriction to the menu bar and lack of documentation really bring down the value of this app
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SORATILE
 Soratile by Sky Blue Factory is distributed as shareware with an unlimited demo. Registration is $20 and installation is a simple drag and drop. Of the two apps we are looking at today, SoraTile is the closest to the original Classic Switcher. It can appear as both a menu item and a floating toolbar. Each can be active or disabled based on the user’s preference. The tool bar or “Tile” as it is called can be positioned either vertically or horizontally and can float anywhere on the screen. It mimics both the appearance and behavior of the Classic Switcher and bundles it with a host of features fitting a modern System X app. The size of its icons can be set from 16x16 up to a whopping 128x128.
There are numerous preferences available to control the behavior of windows. Modifier keys can be assigned to reveal all or hide all background apps. The entire Floating pallet can be collapsed down to the single blue icon with a simple Command Click. Right clicking will reveal a host of features including commands for Sleep, Restart and Shutdown, Recent Items, Network and Disk Volumes, Favorites, System Preferences and more. It fully supports dragging and dropping of files. It performs all of these functions flawlessly.
The only problem I found was that the floating palette is sometimes difficult to move, requiring several firm clicks for it to respond. This was the only real glitch I came across. Overall it mimics nearly every feature of the Classic Switcher and adds many new abilities as well. If Apple had kept the old dog around this may well be what it would have looked like. The authors have thoughtfully included very visual web documentation outlining the major features of the App. I found the using the program very intuitive overall and was very pleased with its feature set.
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The Good: Nearly identical in form to the Classic Application Switcher. Adds many new features as well.
The Bad: Floating palette can be hard to drag around. May cause an unnatural pining for 1998.
The Skinny: If you thought Classic’s floating application switcher was the first
sign of hope after the departure of Gill Amelio, this is your app.
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