Well, they’ve done it again. Another iTunes update, another revamp of the keyboard shortcuts. For those of you who are keeping count, that’s 3 times in the last year alone… As a dedicated keyboard user, it’s getting hard to keep up.

The keyboard shortcut in question is the “Switch to Mini-Player” or what used to be the Minimize command. Earlier in 2009, the iTunes team changed the functionality of the “Minimize” command (the little green ball in the upper left corner -or- Window Menu->Minimize) in order to maintain continuity with the rest of OS X but in the process broke a well-known command that a majority of users took for granted. Before this change, the Minimize command [command-control-z (note: a 1-handed keyboard combo)] would switch iTunes from the full size player into its mini-sized self, and back again.

After the change, the Minimize command worked as it does in other OS X applications, expanding and minimizing the window in a somewhat unpredictable way. In the process, they changed the “Switch to Mini-Player” functionality to the keyboard shortcut [command-shift-M] which is nearly impossible to achieve with just your left hand (My typical setup is left hand on the keyboard, right-hand on the mouse).

Subsequently, the iTunes world erupted – and a flood of feedback persuaded Apple to revert back to the original functionality. (Phew, crisis averted)

On Wednesday, Feb 3, 2010 iTunes 9.0.3 was released with the Minimize functionality again switched to match continuity with OS X – breaking the well-known keyboard shortcut once again. To make matters worse, the “little green ball” in the upper-left corner doesn’t match the Minimize command, instead it kept its original functionality of switching iTunes into the mini-player – it’s all become very confusing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m plenty capable of adapting and getting used to whatever the iTunes team decides is the best the configuration of keys, based on current and future planned features – but I’m growing tired of re-learning them every few weeks.

So here’s hoping that one day soon Apple will get their act together and stick with a shortcut scheme.

-WD

Hello and welcome to another Blog.WD Tech Tip. This week we’ll be talking about Exposé on Mac OS X 10.6 – Snow Leopard… There has been a lot of articles done on this subject lately, but they all fall short of laying out a clear list of all available features to the end user.

Exposé is a highly useful feature in OS X that unshuffles overlapping windows on your desktop into an organized thumbnail view, so you can quickly locate and switch to any window or get to any file on the desktop. Exposé has 3 different ways of functioning:

• All Windows Mode (F9 or F3 by default)
• Application Windows (F10 or Control-F3 by default)
• Show Desktop (F11 or Command-F3 by default)

All Windows Mode tiles all of your open windows, scales them down, and neatly arranges them in a grid. This means never having cycle endlessly through open windows or close needed windows in order to see what’s behind it. For even the most basic of users this feature will save a tremendous amount of time and headache, but there is more. Once you’ve involked All Windows Mode, depending on how many windows you have open, you might be staring at a large jumble of unsorted thumbnails… Thankfully the excellent folks at Apple don’t sit around picking their noses all day and are already one step ahead of us.

Open Exposé in its All Windows Mode (F9 or F3 by default), and then press ‘Command-1′. This will sort all open windows, alphabetically by window title. There’s no way to unsort the results though, so you will have to close and reopen Exposé to return to the default sort order. This sort feature works in the Application Windows mode as well.

There’s a second sort option available, as well; ‘Command-2′. In Apple’s Exposé video, the narrator states that ‘Command-2′ “sorts [the open windows] by application name.” But after numerous experiments by myself and others, that’s clearly not an accurate description.

What ‘Command-2′ seems to do is first group windows by application (for example, all Safari windows are next to one another), and then sort all of those windows by some, more compelx, algorithm — but that algorithm is not based on the application name. Because of this inconsistent sorting method, I find that ‘Command-2′ isn’t all that useful.

Application Windows mode acts similar to All Windows Mode, but it only tiles the windows of the foreground application (for example, only open Safari windows, if it were the application currently being used).

The Show Desktop mode does just as the name suggests, it slides all open windows off the screen for an unfettered view of your desktop. This feature is extremely handy, especially if you have Safari set to download files to your desktop.

Now there are a few more tricks up the Exposé sleave and they take the concept to a whole new level of organization and convenience. For example, you can press and hold on any application icon in the Dock to bring up it’s open windows in Exposé… but there’s more.

Exposé and Quick Look Together – in either All Windows Mode or the Application Windows mode, you may utilize the keyboard to select any of the onscreen tiles. You can either start typing the name of the window you’d like to select or use the arrow-keys to make your selection… Usually you’d hit ‘Return/Enter’ to bring that window to the foreground and be done with it, but with 10.6 you can instead use the space bar after making your selection to see a full-sized, Quick Look, version of that window. This feature is especially handy if you have several text documents open and need to read some of the text before deciding on a window.

Exposé and Switching Applications – While utilizing the Switch Application menu (Command-Tab), while holding down the Command key, release the Tab key and press the up-arrow button on your keyboard – this brings sends currently selected application Exposé.

Switching Applications in Exposé – Similar to the tip above if, after activating Exposé, you find that you’re not in the right application, you can ‘Command-Tab’ to switch applications right from within Exposé. Saving the trouble of exiting Exposé, switching apps, then re-entering Exposé.

I know this article is a tad on the long side, but we really wanted to create a document that included all the functionalities of Exposé. Hopefully you’ve learned a thing or two and maybe you’ll even bookmark this page as reference for later, either way, we’re glad you stopped by.

Hi All,

iSnipe 2.0 has been officially launched and is available for download on the iTunes App Store. This new version brings a whole slew of new features including: iPhone OS 3.0 Compatibility, Completely Overhauled Interface, Over 1000 Ballistic Profiles, Visual Inputs, Charts, Heads Up Display and much more!

We’ve put a lot of work into this version and we hope that you’ll find all the new additions useful and easy to use. We’ve tried to address most of the requested features that iSnipe users have emailed in… There are a few more good ones that we’re still working on, so keep an eye out for iSnipe v2.1 in the near future. I’d like to thank everyone for continuing to be so supportive of iSnipe and helping to spread the word about the best ballistic calculator for the iPhone/iPod Touch. If it weren’t for all of you iSnipe would never be the App it is today! Thank you all so much.

As usual, if you enjoy iSnipe and find it useful, we ask that you help us out by telling 2 friends. Not only will you be helping your buddies shoot better but you’ll also help ensure that new and interesting features continue to make their way into iSnipe in the coming months. Thanks again and happy shooting.

Hello everyone, it’s been a while since my last correspondence… We’ve been working hard on the new versions of both iSnipe and SecureAccess, which are nearing completion by the way, but in the meantime I wanted share a retro game that most any self-respecting Mac user will remember – StuntCopter.

StuntCopter was originally release back in ’87 by Duane Blehm, who sadly passed away not long after. This game was literally the first ‘video game’ I ever played, shortly followed by another one of Duane’s creations; Cairo Shootout. But in the end it was the annoying chopping of the rotor blades and the sense of excitement felt when I heard that “duh-da-na-la!!” level-up sound that stayed with me all these years.

As luck would have it, a new startup called nerdgames has completely re-written and released StuntCopter for the iPhone and iPod Touch! As a big fan of the game and a fellow iPhone developer, I was extremely excited to see that nerdgames had brought this timeless classic into the new millennium. I’ve been in contact with guys over at nerdgames and they have some pretty exciting ideas for the future of the game, but right now all I’m concerned about is getting past level 11! I almost forgot how easy it was to take out the horse and driver!

Hey All,

I just wanted to quickly let everyone know about a site I found for iPhone Apps; Yappler.com… I know, you’re thinking that there are plenty of iPhone App review sites out there, but this one is different. Developers can link to their YouTube accounts, which means many of the apps listed have a video preview right there as well.

Personally, I feel that 5 photo’s of an app in action is just not enough info to purchase most games… Having a video demo gives a much better idea of how the game plays. I definitely recommend you stop in and check it out.

Best Regards,
The WD Team