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Application Switcher Menu

OS X needs an application switcher menu. The dock arranges applications that are open in an inconsistent way:

The application switcher menu provides a consistent way to switch between applications requiring less mouse movement, and only applications that are open appear in the menu versus the dock which displays all applications. The application switcher menu also displays the icons and the names of all the current running applications with one click versus the dock which only displays the names when the user moves the cursor over the application(again after hunting the application down). The application switcher menu also provides a logical place to put the switch commands in (since keyboard commands ARE required to have a menu equivalent to avoid confusion and increase ease of use) it also takes up less space and with one look to the top right corner you know what application you are in (another point: 90% of the menus are on the menubar, in other words the mouse spends the majority of the time in the upper portion of the screen).

Now on to a new feature:

• Auto Hide- when Auto Hide is On switching between applications hides the other applications that are open excluding the one you are switching too, think of it as a single application view.

*Note the hide commands are still under the application menu, I'm not suggesting to eliminate the dock or application menu.

Document Switcher Menu

If worse comes to shove and the application switcher menu idea is canned here's plan B. The document switcher menu. Why? Well there are two metaphor's for switching between 'things' in Operating System's: 1) switching between applications (Mac OS) and 2) switching between documents (Windows). Why not have both? I know you are probably thinking that the Window menu takes care of switching between documents but notice, its not system wide, its on a per application basis, and haven't you noticed how difficult it is to switch between documents/windows when the window menu itself becomes clogged up (ex. photoshop, golive, or any pallete intensive application) all the documents are at the bottom! I know Jaguar has a new keyboard command(*hint cmd + ~), but still.

Document Menu (Plan 'B')

Here's how the system wide document switcher would work:

• Located in the top right corner on the menubar like the old application switcher menu
• Instead of listing applications all the current documents and windows are listed(excluding utility windows like pallettes, those go under the Window menu)
• Documents are grouped according to the applicaions they belong to
• Switch command appears here
• The icon that appears in the top corner corresponds to the application that the document belongs to(its also pure coincidence that this icon also represents the current application that you are using)
• The Minimize, Collapse, Zoom, Tile, Cascade, Group Documents would be under the Window menu *Window menu needs to be rethought if plan B goes into effect (ex. switch command is gone) the idea still needs some work as you can tell.

  Combo Application/Document Switcher Menu

  

  Application and Document Mode (Plan 'C' combo)

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