14 DAY TRIAL // There have been many comparisons made between OS X and the upcoming Vista, and many of the features available in the former will also be present, although in a slightly different incarnation, in the latter. One example of this is Expose versus Windows Flip; they both achieve the same thing when you get down to the bottom functionality, but they do it in a very different way. While not going into the debate about which is better, there is one significant difference between them, and that is interaction. Expose through the way it presents all the windows open at any given time forces you to make use of the mouse, because navigating via the keyboard - although possible - is complicated and often frustrating. On the other hand, Vista's Flip can be fully controlled via the keyboard, being only a matter of previous and next.
Because of this, for people who are more keyboard centric, Expose has little functionality, most of the time going unused. Fortunately, there are other third party solutions out there, such as Witch.
What it does Witch is a small program that lets you navigate through the many windows you might have open, regardless of which application they belong to and whether or not they may be hidden or minimized. It is similar to an application switcher, except that instead of just letting you switch between programs, it works for their windows as well.
In this regard, it is similar to Expose, the only difference being the way the interaction takes place and the information is presented.
Working with it When you invoke Witch via the global hotkey, it will open a floating window with a list of all the currently open windows, grouped by application. From this point on, you can navigate either via mouse or keyboard to any of them and then either select it or perform any number of additional functions without having to leave the Witch window.
Once you are done, the window disappears to return when you next invoke it.
Many ways to skin a cat Much like Expose - which can show all the windows open from all the applications, or all the windows of the current application only, Witch can be worked with in several ways.
First, you can either switch between the windows of all applications, or just between those of the front one. In this respect, it is exactly like Expose. However, Witch takes things even further, and also lets you select between all windows, regardless of state; all minimized windows; or just the non-minimized ones. The resulting six ways of displaying windows can all be invoked via global shortcuts that you can customize to anything you see fit.
Then Witch offers new ways of interacting with the windows directly. Besides letting you define custom shortcuts for minimizing, zooming and closing the frontmost windows, which can all be done in various ways already, it also adds some very new options. You can, for example, define custom shortcuts for deminimizing all minimized windows, closing all minimized windows, both on a global and frontmost application level.
Straight at the horse's mouth Witch's window can be used to switch between the windows of the currently active applications, but you can also perform additional functions right there, on the spot, without having to leave the interface.
One of the issues that can be encountered with a program such as this is that in OS X, unlike in Vista, you can have applications open without the need to have any windows open for them. Similarly, you can have applications that are 'windowless' such as menubar items or widget like desktop level applications. Witch lets you choose how you would like these to be handled, letting you either display them in the list or not, and in the case of windowless applications also letting you have an Activate and a Relaunch command for them.
In case of normal windows, you can also zoom, minimize and even close them, all directly from the Witch interface.
Good looking While Witch is in no way as visually impressive as Expose or Windows Flip, it is nevertheless quite good looking, and well in tune with the overall look of OS X. Some of the visual presets would confuse even the most colorblind of people, but since these can be ignored - and pretty much every aspect of how the window looks can be customized - it is not really a problem.
The Good
Fully keyboard controllable and more functional than Expose.
The Bad
The most annoying thing about Witch is that it is a bit sluggish and unresponsive. It does not feel at all snappy, and quite frankly, there is no reason for it not to. With the keyboard it is less obvious, but moving the mouse over the window causes the focus to jump all over the place while the program tries to get a grip. Also, there is no easy way to move down one program at a time instead of just one window at a time.
The Truth
If you need the functionality of Expose, but via a keyboard centric control method, then this program should do the trick.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
