When I used MultiFinder under system 6, I found Larry Rosenstein╒s cdev Application Menu extremely useful. Then along came system 7 and suddenly I couldn╒t hold down a couple of modifier keys, click the mouse and have a menu of currently-running applications appear wherever I wanted. So I wasn╒t happy.
At the same time, On Cue stopped working properly, so I couldn╒t switch between applications with a single keystroke either (nor could I launch applications as easily, but that╒s another story╔).
So I wrote AppSwitcher7. Click in the top left or top right of your main screen, or hold down your choice of modifiers and click anywhere and a menu appears containing your running applications. Choose one, and it comes to the front. Or press almost any combination of keys (your choice) to cycle through your current applications, optionally hiding the current application as you go.
AppSwitcher7 arrives at your Mac configured to pop up when you click in the top left or top right corners (the active area is 5 dots square, so you need to have the mouse in the extreme corner). The ╥pop up menu anywhere╙ option is inactive, the menu will have no icons and keyboard switching is disabled. Well, that╒s how it left my Mac, anyway.
To change the settings, click in one of the top corners and choose the Configure╔ option from the menu. This dialog box then appears:
╩
╥with icons╙ is an option because AppSwitcher7 finds the icons from the desktop database each time it is activated, before popping up the menu. I imagine (I have to imagine, since I can╒t check for myself) that if you are running applications from a remote server, this could take some time, perhaps enough to be irritating. Maybe the icons are irritating anyway.
The hieroglyphics against the check boxes under the ╥anywhere, while holding down╙ checkbox mean, from left to right, the command, shift, option and control keys. They╒re identical to the ones used in Apple╒s very own MacroMaker, so any complaints about intelligibility should be directed at Apple, not at me.
To set the keyboard switching keys, click on the appropriate Set button. You╒ll then get this dialog:
╩
If you are setting the key which will hide the current application as it switches, the word ╥without╙ will be missing. Valid keys, apart from all printable characters, are the arrow keys, tab, return and enter.
System 7 seems to encourage the development of applications which, although not actually background-only tasks like the file sharing monitor, very rarely need to be brought to the front: DownLine (a very useful shareware for people who download a lot of Stuffed, BinHexed files) and Print Monitor are two which spring to mind. Since you don╒t usually want to get to them, AppSwitcher7 gives you a way to exclude any application from the popup menu, the keyboard switching rota or both. To get at it, click the Exclude╔ button in the configuration dialog and this dialog will appear:
╩
The scrolling list shows the applications which will be excluded from one or other of the menu and the keyboard rota. To add a new application to the list, click the Add╔ button and you╒ll get a standard Open dialog showing applications. To remove an app, either double-click on it or select it (by single-clicking) and click the Remove button.
The two check boxes show the settings for the application currently selected in the list: they╒re disabled (greyed-out) if no app is selected. An application will never be excluded, regardless of these settings, if it╒s the current application or it╒s marked (applications which want to be brought to the front often put a diamond next to their name in the application menu: if you exclude Print Monitor, for example, from both keyboard switching and the popup menu, you╒ll still be able to use AppSwitcher7 to get to it if it has a problem with printing and requires your attention, but it won╒t intrude for the rest of the time). To save time when scanning the list, applications which have neither box checked when you click OK are not saved.
Version history
==============
v0.5, June 1991: first beta release
v0.6, July 1991: added keyboard switching hiding the current application. Fixed keyboard switching so a background-only process doesn╒t make it stick at the Finder. Added icons to the popup menu. Fixed a few bugs and made several internal changes.
v1.0, August 1991: added the ability to exclude certain applications from the keyboard switching rota and/or the popup menu. Fixed a problem which occasionally meant that AppSwitcher thought the frontmost window was a modal dialog when it wasn╒t.
v1.01, September 1991: fixed a bug which resulted in the popup menu appearing in odd places on machines which didn't have Colo(u)r QuickDraw.
v1.02, September 1991: fixed a bug concerned with modifier keys and "switch and hide".
Known bugs
==========
If you have two applications running which have identical names (as they appear in the popup menu), you can╒t switch to the second. I╒m sure there╒s a way of fixing this (apart from not doing such a damn silly thing in the first place). Thanks to Larry Rosenstein for pointing this one out.
You can╒t add desk accessories to the exclude list.
The probable delay while the icons are found if you╒re running applications from a remote server could be regarded as a bug, but since it╒s documented, we╒ll call it a feature. I╒m working on a way to fix it.
