Section 2.11. Windows Flip (AltTab): All Versions


2.11. Windows Flip (Alt+Tab): All Versions

In its day, the concept of overlapping windows on the screen was brilliant , innovative, and extremely effective. In that era before digital cameras , MP3 files, and the Web, managing your windows was easy this way; after all, you had only about three of them.

These days, however, managing all the open windows in all your open programs can be like herding cats. Off you go, burrowing through the microscopic pop-up menus of your taskbar buttons , trying to find the window you want. And heaven help you if you need to duck back to the desktopto find a newly downloaded file, for example, or eject a disk. You'll have to fight your way through 50,000 other windows on your way to the bottom of the "deck."

In Windows Vista, the same window-shuffling tricks are available that were available in previous editions:

  • Use the Taskbar . Clicking a button on the taskbar (page 92) makes the corresponding program pop to the front, along with any of its floating toolbars , palettes, and so on.

  • Click the window . You can also bring any window forward by clicking any visible part of it.

  • Alt+Tab . For years , this keyboard shortcut has offered a quick way to bring a different window to the front without using the mouse. If you press Tab while holding down the Alt key, a floating palette displays the icons of all running programs, as shown at the top in Figure 2-19. Each time you press Tab again (still keeping the Alt key down), you highlight the next icon; when you release the keys, the highlighted program jumps to the front, as though in a high-tech game of duck-duck-goose.

    This feature has been gorgeous-ized in Windows Vista, as shown in Figure 2-19. It's been renamed , too; it's now called Windows Flip.

    Figure 2-19. Alt+Tab highlights successive icons; add Shift to move backward. (Add the Ctrl key to lock the display, so you don't have to keep Alt down. Tab to the icon you want, then press Space or Enter.)



Tip: If you just tap Alt+Tab without holding down the Alt key, you get an effect that's often even more useful: you jump back and forth between the last two windows you've had open. It's great when, for example, you're copying sections of a Web page into a Word document.



Windows Vista. The Missing Manual
Windows Vista: The Missing Manual
ISBN: 0596528272
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 284
Authors: David Pogue

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net