Section 2.12. Windows Flip 3D: Home Premium Business Enterprise Ultimate

2.12. Windows Flip 3D: Home Premium ¢ Business ¢ Enterprise ¢ Ultimate

If your PC is capable of running Aero (page 22), Microsoft has something much slicker for this purpose: Flip 3D, a sort of holographic alternative to the Alt+Tab trick.

The concept is delicious . With the press of a keystroke, Vista shrinks all windows in all programs so that they all fit on the screen (Figure 2-20), stacked like the exploded view of a deck of cards. You flip through them to find the one you want, and you're there. It's fast, efficient, animated, and a lot of fun.

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Tip: You even see, among the other 3D "cards," a picture of the desktop itself. If you choose it, Vista minimizes all open windows and takes you to the desktop for quick access to whatever is there.

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Here's how you use it, in slow motion. First, press +Tab. If you keep your thumb on the key, you see something like Figure 2-20.

Figure 2-20. These window miniatures aren't snapshots; they're "live." That is, if anything is changing inside a window (a movie is playing, for example), you'll see it right on the 3D miniature .
By the way: Don't miss the cool slow-mo trick described in Appendix B .

Keep your thumb on the key. At this point, you can shuffle through the "deck" of windows using any of these techniques:

• Tap the Tab key repeatedly. (Add the Shift key to move backward through the stack.)

• Press the down arrow key or the right arrow key. (Use the up or left arrow key to move backward.)

• Turn your mouse's scroll wheel toward you. (Roll it away to move backward.)

When the window you want is in front, release the key. The 3-D stack vanishes, and the lucky window appears before you at full size .

2.12.1. Flip 3D Without Holding Down Keys

That Flip 3D thing is very cool, but do you really want to exhaust yourself by keeping your thumb pressed on that key? Surely that's an invitation to getting the painful condition known as Nerd's Thumb.

Fortunately, you can also use Flip 3D without holding down keys. You can trigger it using any of these three methods :

• The Quick Launch toolbar (page 101) comes preinstalled with a tiny icon that, when you point to it, identifies itself as "Switch between windows." Click it.

• Add the Ctrl key to the usual keystroke. That is, press +Ctrl+Tab. This time, you don't have to keep any keys pressed.

• Press the Flip 3D key on your keyboard, if it has one.

Any of these tactics triggers the 3-D floating-windows effect shown in Figure 2-20. At this point, you can use the arrow keys or your mouse's scroll wheel to flip through the open windows without having to hold down any keys. When you see the one you want, press the Esc key to choose it and bring it to the front.