December 21, 2004

• The best way is to use Expose rather than minimizing to the dock. Hit F9 to bring up all windows, and just click on the one you want, rather than all that tedious dock stuff. Mind you, it won't bring up minimized windows, and you do still have to use the trackpad. Failing that...I don't know of any other way off the top of my head or even a quick search of macosxhints.com.
• I agree, I don't think there is a "hot key" to bring back a docked window.. logically, since you could dock any number of windows, they would each have to have a unique hotkey or they would ALL pop back on ya! as Sandspider mentioned, expose is probably the way to go.. There is a utility out there that will let you windowshade an os x window just as you could in 9.x look here
• ditto on the "how would it know what to un-minimize." don't minimize, just COMMAND-` (back tick, it's the same key as the tilde) through the apps open (and non-minimized) windows.
• so why is it whenever someone asks a windows question about "how do i deal with X? it won't do Y like i want it to" somone always chimes in with "get a mac", as helpful as it always is to hear that; and yet when a mac question comes up about something that is as simple as this on windows - alt-tab through all open programs, minimized or not - nobody ever says "get a windows box"? is it that mac users love their macs so much that they evangelize in windows threads, or is it because windows users seldom read the mac threads? just curious.
• Because "I told ya so" just doesn't quite cover it. Much better to belittle them until they explode in a flaming homicidal rage and then we get to smugly claim the moral high ground as we tap-tap-tap away on our awesomely overpriced, yet curiously stylish white boxes.
• There's no global key to do that, but depending on the application, you can do combo keys to bring up the window. In mail.app, for example you can minimize the inbox, and bring it back with alt-apple-n. But it's a different hack for each app. Here are all of the standard OSX keyboard shortcuts, and if you turn on universal keyboard access in the system prefs, you get even more. Personally, I get round it by using Quicksilver. Perhaps the greatest application I have ever ever ever used. Naked without it, I tells ya.
• There is a paradigm problem here. How would OSX know which window to un-minimize if you have four minimized? What if they were from different apps? It's sort of UI question that I think you're ignoring. Nevertheless, I'd suggest looking at: [unsanity] WindowShade X - Unsanity - Makers of Haxies, small useful utilities that enhance and redefine how Mac OS X works. as it can do some of degree of hiding windows via keys
• to strawberry - if you can get your hands on a copy of MacAddict's september 2004 issue (and cd), there is a How To section that can walk you through building a Cocoa App that will toggle between open files similar to how the commmand tab operation works. . . but as that might take a lot of time and effort to do, you can download it here
• oh and to the windows people, i agree with you: it's childish and immature for people to berate you with banal nonsense about their preferred operating system or computer ---- which begs the question, however. . . ???? ps - windows alt-tab is performed with just two keystrokes on a mac (though depending on how one uses osx, results may differ)
• most apps will let you cmd-1,2,3,4 etc to cycle through its windows...so you could cmd-1, cmd-m, cmd-2, cmd-m... to find the window you are looking for... there is also control-F3 to cycle through the dock with your kb... none are perfect solutions, but it might save you a trip to the trackpad !
• I never minimise anything in OSX. I splat-H to hide programs, and splat-tab brings them straight back up. (splat being the apple/tic-tac-toe button, obviously)
• I agree with tracicle on this one, luckily I previewed before I posted. Windows mgmt. in OS X isn't something I've given too much thought to. OS 9 was horrible for window management, and I can't bear it when I have to work on a client's machine who is still running that OS. As far as the rivalry between OSs, I think everyone knows the history between Microsoft and Apple. That being said, I think for many people it isn't "fanboy/girlism" it's more of a friendly rivalry. Half the IT dept in my company does PCs, and the other (me included!) does Macs. We both poke fun at eachother's platforms, but it's all in good fun. They each have their uses, and they each excel one another in certain area(s).
• Hmm, finally joined monkeyfilter over this one after lurking for a while. The original mac didn't have arrow keys and with early versions of windows the mouse was strictly optional. The upshot of this is that windows has a very well worked out set of windows manipulation keys and they've never been properly developed on the mac. 10.3 has really improved keyboard navigation but it still is far from perfect. The best solution is to use ctl-F3 as mentioned above to move focus to the dock. If that isn't convenient, one option is to use full keyboard access to set another key combination to this action. Another option, assuming you've a non-apple keyboard with a bunch of useless 'multimedia' keys, is to map one of them to ctl-F3 to open the dock.
• Thanks for all of your input. HuronBob: I should've been more clear in my original description... I didn't need the ability to pick just one out of multiple minimized app windows; I had been thinking that if the app was the frontmost app, the hotkey would bring up any/all minimized windows (for that app). tracicle: "I never minimise anything in OSX. I splat-H to hide programs, and splat-tab brings them straight back up. Thanks, that sounds like a more efficient process. I always knew I could hide apps with COMMAND-H (or hide all other apps with OPTION-COMMAND-H), but always thought that I then had to click on them in the dock to bring them back up. (I only installed Panther about 2 months ago so I'm still getting used to the COMMAND-TAB app-switcher) And, just a note, Expose is awesome. If anyone out there is using Jaguar and holding off on getting Panther... ...well, I was going to say 'go for it', but at this point with Tiger a few months away it might make sense money-wise to just wait for Tiger. Damn, I love Expose... never have the F9 and F11 keys on my 12" iBook seen so much use.
• ...with early versions of windows the mouse was strictly optional. Good point. When I started working the office I was in had a crusty old 486 running 3.11 and I actually found it more efficient to run without a mouse. The shortcuts were very obvious and quick, and without a mouse there was one less thing cluttering up my desk. Even now on my Win2k machine I use the keyboard shortcuts over the mouse, just out of habit. It's trickier with a Mac.