Screenshot of the "all windows" function in Exposé in Mac OS X Snow Leopard. |
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| Developer(s) | Apple Inc. |
| Initial release | 24 October 2003 (Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther") |
| Type | Window management tool |
Exposé is a feature of the Mac OS X operating system. First previewed on 23 June 2003 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a feature of the then forthcoming Mac OS X v10.3,[1] Exposé allows a user to quickly locate an open window, or to hide all windows and show the desktop without the need to click through many windows to find a specific target. It has been replaced in Mac OS X 10.7 by Mission Control
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Exposé includes three separate features for organizing windows:
However, in Mac OS X Lion:
In the first two cases, after Exposé is activated, the user can select any window by clicking on it or selecting it with arrow keys and pressing Enter. Exposé then deactivates, leaving the selected window in the foreground. Using Apple Mighty Mouse, it is possible to select a window using the Scroll Ball, by scrolling in the direction of that window.
The key used for activating Exposé can be customized to be any of the function keys, the shift, control, option or command key, the fn key on Mac laptops, or even a mouse button on multiple-button mice (including Apple Mighty Mouse).
Exposé can also be activated by moving the mouse to a corner of the desktop using a feature called Active Screen Corners (which is off by default). It can also be activated with a four-finger gesture on the trackpad (only on the current-generation Macbook and Macbook Pro, or by using Apple Magic Trackpad.)
Exposé also works with Spaces, a new feature in Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard, so that a user could see the windows in each desktop scaled down while looking at a scaled down version of each space.
When Exposé first premiered in 2003, it could be controlled using the F9, F10 and F11 keys.
The Exposé shortcut keys were moved to the F3 key to make room for the "rewind", "play/pause" and "fast forward" keys. On Mac keyboards made after 2004, Exposé can be activated by using the F3 key or in combination with the command key, or on the trackpad of Macbooks supporting multi-touch interface. (However, F9, F10 and F11 can still be used for controlling Exposé with the function modifier key, or by enabling the "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" setting.)
On Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), Exposé featured a new organized grid view and allowed users to activate Exposé from the Dock.
The "blob" is a hidden and undocumented interface to Exposé that was discovered by a member of the MacNN forums.[2] When clicked, it enables the "Application Windows" mode. When Option+clicked, it enables the "All Windows" mode.
Another undocumented feature of Exposé is for the show desktop function. It places all the open windows in a small box on the screen that can be moved to anywhere on the screen.[3] This function has some bugs, after exiting the show desktop mode, the foremost window will not have a shadow and the user will not be able to move the window. However, this is easily fixed by using the show all function. It also had another bug that causes an area of screen the width of the minimised preview to become unresponsive to mouse clicks requiring the windowserver to be restarted.
Using the Shift key, Exposé can be activated in slow motion, as can Front Row, Dashboard, the minimise effect and several other animations. This is the same effect that was demonstrated by Steve Jobs during the unveiling of Exposé during the 2003 Worldwide Developers Conference.[4]
Similar effects are used on other operating systems.
Compiz and KWin are compositing window managers for systems using the X Window System. Both include plugins similar to Exposé - the scale plugin in Compiz and the present windows effect in KWin. Skippy also performs similar functions to Exposé.
Starting with version 3.0, the GNOME desktop environment has gained a new mode called "Overview", which is used to launch applications and manage workspaces. In this mode, windows are scaled and arranged in an Exposé-like fashion for quick switching.
Microsoft Windows Vista provides a feature called Windows Flip 3D, which has a vaguely similar purpose. Flip 3D allows a user to flip through all open windows in a manner similar to how the application switcher works (alt+tab). A downside to this method is that the frontmost window covers a significant portion of the other windows, unlike Exposé. On the other hand, this allows the user to see the contents of the frontmost window, while this can be difficult in Exposé, especially if the user has a large number of windows open. However, Vista's Desktop Window Manager exposes a public API that allows any application to access the same thumbnail representations that Flip3D uses, and so there are a number of third party add-ons that are able to provide Exposé-like functionality in Vista.
A freeware program for Windows Vista and Windows 7 called Switcher provides similar functionality. It allows all of the currently open windows to display in a grid or dock formation where the user can click the desired window to switch focus.
Microsoft's Intellipoint Software for Microsoft Mice has had a feature somewhat similar to Exposé,[5] but one that works with static images of windows, rather than live representations as Exposé and Flip3D do. Additionally, several freeware Windows applications exist to emulate the functionality of Exposé.