One of the only features of Windows XP that I have been missing is the ‘Show Desktop’ button in the quick launch bar. That little button immediately clears your workspace and tosses windows in the task bar. Sure OS X has Exposé, but sometimes it just doesn’t do the trick. F11 is nice, but the windows are still there once you toggle it back on. And hitting Apple+M or Apple +H really fast isn’t efficient.
Luckily I found a ‘Show Desktop’ clone, ironically named Show Desktop :) This little app resides either in your Dock or Menu Bar. When clicked, all of your open programs get hidden (so you can still Apple+Tab through them) and finder windows get minimized. This is as close to the Windows XP version as it could get. Now if only I could figure out how to set a keystroke to Show Desktop I’d be set!
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Would be something nice to have. Windows even has a shortcut (Windows + D) to show the desktop.
Still, I think Expose is good enough. I mapped the show desktop command to one of the buttons on the mouse so it isn’t really much of a hassle. :)
i had to get this program also.
i do not use it much, but it is very cool.
you may want to look into VirtueDesktops it is very cool and really useful.
HAHAHA, funny thing is that I was checking out VirtueDesktops website last night! True story.
I used to use the multiple desktop feature when I was a linux bum. I was about |–| close to installing VirtueDesktops until I realized that Leopard’s ’spaces’ will do pretty much exactly the same thing. But then again, who knows when Leopard is going to be out, so it might be advantageous for me to install it now and worry about uninstalling it later.
Correct me if I’m wrong but can ‘t you do Apple-H to hide all windows?
Apple H only hides the current application. If I wanted to hide ALL the running applications I would have to hit Apple H repeatedly until all the programs were hidden. Show Desktop allows you the hide everything with one click. Now I just need to figure out how to bind a key to the Show Desktop application :)
Apparantly Apple-Option-click on finder in Dock will do a hide all *shrug* Your way seems less hassle ;)
To be honest the one thing that I missed was the ability to lock the computer with a simple key press (win-L) but I found a utility that appears to let you enable that functionality on OSX (since I’ve not got my mac yet I can’t test but it looks promising) - Winswitch - which amongst other things let you set a hotkey to take you to the fast user switch screen, effectively locking the machine until a password is input.
Oh cool, I like that Apple Option click on the finder trick! Thats pretty slick.
When I was in college living in the dorms I would use that keystroke to lock my computer from pranks. I haven’t had a need for locking my computer since then. Shift Apple Q brings up the dialog to log off the current user. This command will put you one click away from the log on screen. Winswitch seems even quicker though and its free, which is sweet as well!
Nick
Simply select finder and hit Command-option-H, or
click in the finder while holding option, or
control-option click on the finder icon in the dock and select hide others!
You could write a simple applescript to do what you want and place it in the dock to hide all other apps in one click if you want!
Cheers!
Hey, thats a nice OS X only solution.
Holding down the option key and clicking on the finder icon in the dock does the trick! Even though it brings up the finder I still like the simplicity of your method :)