Snow Leopard four-finger swipe used to get you the app switcher (same as cmd-tab), now it invokes Spaces/Desktop switcher.
Is there any way to get the app switcher from a swipe command? I use this a lot.. 😟
MacBook Pro 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.7), 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3
The same four finger swipe now only switches between full screen apps.
Yes, I know that. That's why I'm posting about it...
My question is
How do you invoke the app switcher in Lion with the trackpad ?
(yes, I know you can do it on the keyboard with Cmd-Tab, but that's not the same...)
🙂
There isn't a way, as has been found, yet.
Swipe up into mission control and switch apps from there.
If you swipe four fingers up, to get Mission Control, you can drag the windows from the central Exposé section to the top of the screen, where they will magically move to separate Spaces, which you can then switch between. So far as I can tell, that's the only work around, and it's a bit clunky.
Thanks both rbrian and Barney; I'd discovered that already (and yes, it is clunky indeed!), but good to know there's no point in wasting anymore of my time looking for it if it ain't there!
Cheers 🙂
Didn't you use this a lot? I know I did. I think they should give you the option of app switcher functioning like it did in SL. The solution suggested is as everyone is saying, clunky and completely useless if you have applications on other monitors that you weren't trying to switch away from.
I never used spaces because I have three screens, and spaces takes up all three screens when changing them leaving me to group everything I'm working with in one space and switching between the open applications in finder hence my use of App switcher in place of spaces.
Turning off four finger swipe between fullscreen makes it so that there is nothing attributed to that gesture. putting back the option to use this now free gesture would make me stop regretting the update.
This is a huge deal breaker IMO
late 08 mbp 5,1 15" 2.53 GHz 64bit 8gb ram lion 10.7
I never had a Magic Trackpad until recently. I used the app switcher from the keyboard. However, since getting the Magic Trackpad, I can't remember the last time I used the application switcher. I just swipe between desktops.
TheSmokeMonster wrote:
completely useless if you have applications on other monitors that you weren't trying to switch away from
hypothetical example, I'm watching a design keynote fullscreen while doing work on Photoshop and also talking with my colleague on a video chat. I have three monitors and I want all these open at the same time because I'm working with everything and want to see them all.
In most situations, I'll have multiple things open because I'm working with them in unison and need everything in drag and drop reach . Spaces doesn't allow me to do this.
besides, I bet that app switcher would let you switch between the desktops/apps faster then if you had to swipe through them all to find the app you were looking for. I know the swiping looks nice, but for me, app switcher was my go to. Now it's a little more looking to find the right app you were looking for. And a lot more key presses and gestures.
@softwater I found it! ok get Better Touch Tool (free/donation)
, click add new gesture, find the four finger left and instead of inputting a keystroke (cmd+tab) there is a pull down for different things and application switcher is one of them!!! and it works flawlessly!!! repeat for four fingers right if you switch it up or make it do something else completley. Of course you should make sure you have turned off Fullscreen swipe completely. it'll ask you if you want to use special application switcher, I tried it and it wasn't the same so I didn't use it.
I got 99 problems but app switch ain't one.
You can drag and drop between spaces. Just start dragging, activate MC with keyboard or hot corner, hover over the app, document, desktop, etc until it pops up, then drop.
I don't know how fast one or the other is as I have no way of timing it.
And, I don't understand how MC interferes with your ability to arrange you monitors the way you'd like.
Barney, you're missing the point I think, I want to see all of these apps at once. I'm getting information simultaneously from all my apps. If I were to switch to a new desktop I wouldn't see any of them. In my case I'm better off not using spaces because it hides other apps from me that I'm working with and want to watch/see. I can see using spaces for doing multiple tasks that have nothing to do with each other but for me, switching to them would be a slower process then if they were right there visible and drag and droppable, to begin with.
The time it takes to drag a file to the edge of the screen and wait for it to know your trying to put it in the new space is too long especially if you're doing something with web dev where you're transferring large amounts of files at a time, and frequently. In my real world situation I have a browsers in one monitor, photoshop in another and my code editor in the third. I am constantly switching between all of them as I build themes and tweak the layouts. I can reference and double check all of them at once because I can see them together. This is useful to me.
I can see using spaces if you have one display and multiple apps that have nothing to do with each other in terms of your work flow in particular, however I'll clutter my displays up any day for good ol App Switcher which lets me fly, in my situation, with the greatest of ease.
Besides, ever since updating to lion I can't drag anything without it sticking to my cursor until I hold esc click, which turns off my keyboard and then esc click again to turn it back on. But that's a different thread :-)
Just in case it got lost in the shuffle
I wrote:
@softwater I found it! ok get Better Touch Tool (free/donation)
, click add new gesture, find the four finger left and instead of inputting a keystroke (cmd+tab) there is a pull down for different things and application switcher is one of them!!! and it works flawlessly!!! repeat for four fingers right if you switch it up or make it do something else completley. Of course you should make sure you have turned off Fullscreen swipe completely. it'll ask you if you want to use special application switcher, I tried it and it wasn't the same so I didn't use it.
Command + tab in keyboard, only way...
Sheldon, I got it to work flawlessly once again. read above your post!
I've tried BetterTouchTool but found it a bit buggy. However, I have found another way to do App Switching that makes use of the otherwise useless Mission Control 😉 and is nearly as good as the original.
I've been playing with this method for a couple of hours now and it seems like the fastest/smoothest solution so far. Try it out and see what you think.
Basically, because Mac OS doesn't allow you to run more than one instantiation of an Apple programme, you simply put all your most used Apps on the first page of Mission control. When you want to app switch, you use the four finger pinch and tap the app you want to switch to. If the app is already running it'll take you back to the screen and windows you were last working on. If its not, it'll launch the app.
Of course, you'll have to spend some time laboriously moving all the apps around in Mission Control first so that all your most used apps are on the first page. My day to day work is usually switching between the same half a dozen apps, so with this line up on the top row of page 1 in MC, it seems to work pretty well (obviously, there's nothing to stop you swiping to other pages, too, i it just slows you down a bit).
There is one fatal flaw, however: Finder does not appear in MC. Any way to get it to appear there? (At the moment I'm trial running a third party extension to Finder called TotalFinder, and using the 'Visor' option as a work around, biut its not very satisfactory).
Changing the topic somewhat, this is the first time I've ever needed to use so much 3rd party stuff on Mac OS. Time was when "it just worked"). 😟
um, sounds complicated, and I don't use spaces or mission control because I usually use all my apps in relation to eachother and need to be able to see eachone as I'm working on the other.
As for better touch tool, it's buggy if you try to give it the key commands but if you go to the pull down menu to make it do the app switcher, he's written a very elagent code that gets it to work the same way. the only difference I can see is that you can't swipe four fingers again to make it go away, it just got to the next app in app switcher but that just means that if you are trying to use app switcher then you better have an app you want to go to, you can always click out of app switcher too.
I imagine you tried to tell it to do cmd+tab. That's not good at all. Use this:
as you see I have it do both but that's not necessary and I just turned it off but instead of telling it the key commands, select it in the pulldown and tell me if it it works like you wanted it to. of course if spaces was for you the whole time, then I guess you're good but if gesturing for app switcher was something you wanted this is the only way.
how to invoke the app switcher?
