14 DAY TRIAL // Normally I'm a big believer of the old adage "if it's not broken, don't fix it," but recently I have gotten more and more frustrated with the built in application switching in OS X. When transferring information from one application to another via the old copy-paste method, it had the most annoying tendency of switching to another application, instead of the two I needed to alternate between. This is mostly because of the fact that it reacts to mouse movements while the application floater is in place. So I decided to look into something that would help me get rid of it. And I came across LiteSwitch X.
More than meets the eye? The main thing I was looking for was another application switching solution, one I hoped would not have the limitations of the default implementation. Not only did I find it, but I also discovered a new level to an application switching solution. After all, how much can there be to switching between applications? Much more, as I soon found out.
Looking good? The first thing that LiteSwitch X does is change how the application switching floater looks. You can resize the size of it to anything you wish, and it can be as big or as small as the dock. And just like the dock, there is no risk of making it too big; if you set it to a size that will not accommodate more than a number of application icons at any given time and you go over that number, it will automatically shrink them as needed to fit everything in there.
You can also change the placement of the floater that appears while switching applications. It will always be horizontally centered, but vertically, you can put it anywhere you want. It would have been nice to be able to drag it anywhere on screen, instead of just vertically, but I imagine there is some hard limitation to this, or it would have been implemented already.
Because customization is important, you can also set the color and transparency of the application switch bevel, tweaking it to properly match any theme or skin you might have installed.
Many ways to skin a cat? When it comes to switching between applications, LiteSwitch X can do things in several ways.
For one thing, you have the option of how an application should behave when you switch to it using LiteSwitch X. You can have it bring only the topmost window of that application to the front, or have it bring up all the windows of that application to the front. Additionally, there is an advanced option that toggles whether, if an application with no windows open is brought to the front, it will open a new window or remain windowless.
Also, you can set the behavior of applications in an universal manner, meaning that it will apply not only when using LiteSwitch X, but also when switching using the dock, or simply by selecting the window of another application with the mouse. You can set only the Finder to have all its windows come to front when it becomes active, or configure this behavior to all applications. A third option is to only have one application active at a time, all other becoming hidden (although the finder is excluded from this rule and will always be visible).
In terms of actually switching between applications, it also has a few discreet but monumental niceties. For one thing, while Command-Tab will move forward through the applications, to move backwards you needn't use the full Command-Shift-Tab combo (although you can if you wish it), because Command-Shift or Command-Tilde is enough to accomplish this. This alone would make the program a keeper.
Another thing you have control over is whether mouse movements have any affect over the application selection, so that's my little peeve sorted. Another long-time peeve was how, if you were in one application and hid it automatically switching to another, tapping Command-Tab once would not take you back to the application that was hidden. Not with LiteSwitch X, it works as I want it too.
More than just application switching? LiteSwitch X takes things one step further and lets you interact with the active programs more than just changing from one to another. You can do this either with the mouse, via a contextual menu, or using keyboard shortcuts.
It lets you mark application for quitting, quit applications, force quit applications and even force-quit and restart applications. You can hide or show applications or have an application open, while hiding all others at the same time.
The Good Packed with bells and whistles, all the options you could possibly wish for and a ton of others.
The Bad The price tag is a bit peppered for an application switching utility.
The Truth If the application switching works for you, then you won't need to fix it. If it isn't working, try this out and see if it gets better.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
