Mac OS X only: Breeze is a handy window management app that lives in your Mac menubar and lets you save the current state of any window in any application. You can also assign a keyboard shortcut to the saved window state to easily activate it at any time. More »
Windows 7 only: System tweaking utility Alt+Tab Tuner customizes everything about the Windows 7 Alt-Tab dialog, from setting the transparency to increasing the size of the thumbnails. More »
Windows 7 has a lot of neat new features (such as Aero Peek) that help you see what’s behind a window, but reader Verygoodyear shares a very simple, one-key solution for any Windows version that, surprisingly, is new to us.
When moving a window in Windows, if you move the window, keep your finger held down on the mouse and then press Esc, it puts it back where you got it from.
Some of you may have known about this before, but we were a little shocked when we read Verygoodyear's tip—it's perfect for checking what's going on behind the frontmost one without disrupting your window layout and you don't need to activate Aero Peek to do it. Were we just incredibly slow on the uptake on this one (it works all the way back to XP), or is this simple-but-useful shortcut new to you, as well? Let's hear it in the comments.
Mac only: Accurately named menu bar app Cinch lets you set windows up side by side, à la Windows 7's Aero Snap feature, just by dragging them to the side of your screen.
After installing Cinch, you are given the option of having it launch at login, and whether you want to see it in the menu bar. The app itself is very simple—to snap a window to half-screen size, just drag it until your cursor hits the side of the screen, and a dotted line will show you where the window will go. Releasing the mouse button will snap it into place, allowing you to have two windows side by side to work with. In addition, you can drag a window to the top of your screen to maximize it. After you're done working, drag the window away from its screen edge and its original size will be restored.
Cinch is free as nagware, costs $7 for the nag-free version, and is Mac only. Thanks, Jasmeet!
Windows only: If you want a little extra eye-candy in your Windows management, T3Desk is an alt-tab alternative that gives you 3D windows arrangement and more.
Click on the image above for a closer look.
T3Desk works on all versions of Windows but it really shines in Vista and above where it can take advantage of Aero. After installing T3Desk you can use keyboard shortcuts to minimize and maximize windows to the edges of your monitor, arranging them in a pseudo-3D fashion. T3Desk can be tweaked in a variety of ways including how the windows are angled, animated, their level of transparency, the apparent distance from the viewer, and how they transition from the virtual desktop back into use.
You can drag windows and dock them to the four sides of the monitor, use Aero Peek to see which windows are on the virtual desktop, and set an always include/exclude list for applications to easily exclude applications from the effects of T3Desk.
Some caveats about T3Desk: the biggest issue is that it won’t work with multiple monitors. All 3D windows are pushed onto the primary monitor. Another minor issue is the inability to customize the application’s hot keys. Those complaints aside, it works as promised and provides a novel way to arrange and view open applications.
T3Desk is free and Windows only. Have a favorite application for tweaking the appearance of Windows and managing your applications? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
Windows 7 adds loads of great shortcuts for switching between apps, moving windows around your screen, moving them to another monitor altogether, and much more. Here’s a quick-reference master list of the best new Windows 7 shortcuts.
We’re nuts for keyboard shortcuts here at Lifehacker, and Windows 7 brings a handful of great new ones to add to your muscle memory. It’s also got a few handy mouse-based shortcuts you’d do well to add to your repertoire. So let’s get shortcuttin’.
One of the best changes in Windows 7 is the ability to “snap” windows to the side of the screen, maximize them by dragging to the top of the screen, or even move them to another monitor with a shortcut key. Check out the video for a demonstration of how some of the keys work.
The full list of keyboard shortcuts includes:
You can also interact with windows by dragging them with the mouse:
In Windows 7, using the Windows key along with the numbers 1-9 will let you interact with the applications pinned to the taskbar in those positions – for example, the Windows key + 4 combination would launch Outlook in this example, or Win+Alt+4 can be used to get quick access to the Outlook Jump List from the keyboard.
You can use any of these shortcut combinations to launch the applications in their respective position on the taskbar, or more:
In addition, you can interact with the taskbar using your mouse and a modifier key:
The new hotkey goodness didn't stop with the taskbar and moving windows around—one of the best new hotkeys in Windows 7 is the fact that you can create a new folder with a hotkey. Just open up any Windows Explorer window, hit the Ctrl+Shift+N shortcut key sequence, and you’ll be rewarded with a shiny “New Folder” ready for you to rename.
Here’s a few more interesting hotkeys for you:
The How-To Geek is quickly wearing out the keyboard on his new Windows 7 laptop. His geeky articles can be found daily here on Lifehacker, How-To Geek, and Twitter.
Windows: You’ve got a web page, a file folder, and a chat window open, and they’re all about the same project. WindowTabs, a free-to-try utility, can group together all those app windows with top-most, Google-Chrome-like tabs.
The system tray utility, which used about 11MB of memory to manage five open windows on my system, only does a few things, but it does them fairly smoothly. It adds a tab to the top of your Windows, either on the top-left corner when a window is sized, or as a drop-down, centered tab when maximized. Grab that tab and place it next to another window tab, and the two windows will group, no matter what programs they are. You can drag tabs out of the group again to remove them, and use a familiar Control+Tab keyboard shortcut to switch between open windows in each tab group.
The free trial of WindowTabs doesn’t have a time expiration on it, but does limit you to three tabs per group. The fully-unlocked application goes for $19. That’s pretty limiting in some ways, but WindowTabs lets you pick and choose which applications it allows tabbing for, either by an inclusive or exclusive list of program executable names. So if you already use Google Chrome, or don’t think you want email windows stacked, you can add “chrome” and “outlook” to your exclude list. Alternately, you can use that three-tab limit only for applications where it would really help, like folder views and non-tabbed chat windows.
Here’s what it looks like in action:
WindowTabs is a free download for, technically, XP and Vista systems, but it seemed to run fine on Windows 7 as well. Thanks Clem!
Windows only: Tiny utility Winsupermaximize adds a shortcut key that maximizes the current window and removes the title bar—a great tool for using more of your screen.
Using the utility is simple enough—just start it up and either use the tray icon or the new Win+F11 shortcut key to maximize the current window. In our testing, the tray icon was a little flaky—sometimes maximizing the wrong window, but the shortcut key works perfectly. Since the application is written in AutoHotkey, you can bundle the functionality into your own custom script instead of running a separate executable.
Winsupermaximize is free and open source, available for Windows only. For more, check out Deskhedron’s virtual desktop eye-candy, or use WinRoll to fold windows up into their title bars.
