SwitcherSetup CM is a contextual menu plugin for Mac OS 8.5 or later. To install SwitcherSetup CM, drop it on your System folder or into the “Contextual Menu Items” folder in your System folder and restart.
Important: you do not access the SwitcherSetup contextual menu by control-clicking on the Application Switcher palette. Control-click on the Finder desktop to access the menu.
The Main Menu
The commands in the main menu will be explained first, in order of their appearance in the menu, then the submenus will be explained.
The names of some menu items will change according to context. For example the Disable Hot Key item becomes Enable Hot key if the hot key is currently disabled.
Anchor At [Upper Left/Lower Right]
The anchor point determines which way the palette will grow or shrink as it becomes larger or smaller. It’s as if you nailed down a corner of the palette so that corner couldn’t move.
For example, if you have a horizontal Application Switcher palette, located in the upper left corner of the screen, then you would want to anchor the upper left corner of the palette. Otherwise, as you launched more applications the palette would become larger by growing to the left (since the right side would be anchored) and grow off the left side of the screen.
Note: using palette constraint is another way to avoid having the palette grow outside the bounds of the screen.
[Enable/Disable] Hot Key
Enables or Disables switching between running applications via the keyboard.
Switcher Settings...
Opens SwitcherSetup CM’s Application Switcher configuration dialog. See the section entitled The Switcher Settings Dialog for details.
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The Palette Appearance Submenu
Contains commands that effect the way the palette appears on screen.
[Show/Hide] Palette
Make the switcher palette visible or invisible.
[Show/Hide] Frame
Make the palette frame visible or invisible.
[Show/Hide] Names
Hide or show the names of applications in the palette.
[Horizontal/Vertical] Palette
Toggle the orientation of the palette between horizontal and vertical.
[Large/Small] Icons
Make the palette icons large or small.
Button Order
Set the order in which applications appear in the palette.
The Palette Position Submenu
Contains shortcuts for positioning the palette in one of the corners of the screen. These commands are self explanatory.
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The Constrain Palette To Submenu
The palette can be constrained so that as it grows it won’t go off the edge of the screen.
One Monitor
Constrains the palette to the monitor where its anchor point is.
All Monitors
Constrains the palette to any monitor. It can grow off the edge of a monitor and onto another.
Don’t Constrain
The palette is not constrained and can grow off the screen.
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Utility
The Utilty submenu will only be included in the Switcher Setup menu if you have one or more of five supported utilities in your Control Panels folder.
The supported utilities are:
AppSwitcher Control
Prestissimo
SwitchBox
Switcher PowerUp
SwitcherSetter
Any of these utilities found in the Control Panels folder at startup will be included in the Utility submenu. If none of these utilities are found, there will be no Utility submenu. Switcher utilities added to your Control Panels folder will show up in the Utility after the next restart.
If you know of an Application Switcher related utilty which you would like supported, email me a URL where I can get it. Please don’t email the file unless you contact me first.
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Presets
The Application Switcher settings can be saved to presets for easy recall, and the presets can be given descriptive names.
The Presets Submenu
This submenu contains 5 presets. Choose one to load the settings saved to that preset.
The Save Preset Submenu
Choose a preset from this menu and the current Application Switcher settings will be saved to the preset.
The Rename Preset Submenu
When you choose an item from this menu, a dialog will open allowing you to enter a name for the preset.
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The Switcher Settings Dialog
Switcher Settings Hot Key Tab
Here is where you set the key/modifier key combination for switching between running applications. You can also disable or enable keyboard switching here.
Use the modifier key checkboxes to choose the desired modifiers. Do not hold down the modifier keys on the keyboard while pressing a key.
Switcher Settings Quit Delay Tab
Here you can set the Application Switcher quit delay. The Application Switcher is a backgraound application. Anytime the palette is visible Application Switcher is running. If the palette is invisible and the Never Quit checkbox is not checked then Application Switcher will automatically quit after the number of seconds specified.
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Other Notes
The Application Switcher can be configured whether it is currently visible or not. If configuration is done while the palette is hidden then you will see the changes the next time the palette becomes visible.
If you drag the palette from the Applications menu it will be placed where you drop it. If you use SwitcherSetup CM’s show palette command then the palette will pop up in the last position it was placed in.
The Application Switcher’s palette doesn’t support contextual menus, so control-clicking there does nothing and, as far as I know, there is nothing I can do about that.
Beta versions wouldn’t work on systems where the Application Switcher was named differently from English versions of Mac OS. SwitcherSetup CM now searches for the extension by creator code, so it should work under any language.
If something isn’t working correctly, especially presets, try deleting the SwitcherSetup CM preferences.
Version History
1.1.1: Fixes dialog text broken in version 1.1.
1.1: Added Utilty submenu. Fix for non English language systems (again).
