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In Mac OS X, Exposé is a tool for managing open windows (especially large numbers of windows), allowing the user to quickly see all open windows (or specific sets) without the need to click through many windows to find a specific target.
Exposé has three different modes using different criteria to organize the windows:
- Exposé can show all open and unhidden windows, shrinking their appearance so they all fit on a single screen. By default, this can be activated using the F9 key.
- Exposé can show all open and unhidden windows for the currently-active application. Again, the windows shrink to appear on the screen together, but generally they shrink less because there are fewer windows in a single application compared to the system as a whole. (See screenshot, right.) In the default preferences, this can be activated using the F10 key.
- Exposé can move all windows off the screen, giving the user clear access to the Desktop. In the default preferences, this can be activated using the F11 key.
In the first two cases, after Exposé is activated, the user can select any window by clicking on it or selecting it with a keyboard-driven cursor and pressing Enter. Exposé then deactivates, leaving the selected window in the foreground.
The key used for activating Exposé can be customized to be any of the function keys, the shift, control, option or command key, the fn key on PowerBooks and iBooks, or even a mouse button on multiple-button mice.
The Quartz Compositor ensures that the animations and rescaling are quick and smooth.
Exposé was introduced with Mac OS X v10.3 ("Panther") in October 2003. Since then, several Microsoft Windows and Linux applications have duplicated its functionality, including TopDesk (http://www.otakusoftware.com/topdesk), WinPLOSION (http://www.winplosion.com/) (originally called WinExposé), Entbloess (http://entbloess.com/), Skippy (http://thegraveyard.org/skippy.php) and Expocity (http://www.pycage.de/software_expocity.html).
Microsoft did some research prior to the year 2000 on visually representing applications as shrunken versions of themselves rather than icons and concluded that this was a superior approach. However the fruits of this research seemed to have never made it to a product. From a design description of StartPalette in the research project TaskGallery (http://research.microsoft.com/ui/TaskGallery/pages/design.htm): "Instead of confusable and hard to learn icons, open documents and running applications are shown as snapshots, small versions of their actual appearance."
See also
External links
- Apple - Mac OS X - Features - Exposé (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/expose/)it:Exposé