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Old Exposé in Snow Leopard

S

shipdestroyer

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 5, 2007
267
0
New Hampshire
Am I the only one who doesn't like the new Exposé in Snow Leopard? The ability to restrict it to certain apps and expand windows individually is great, but the windows are laid out much less efficiently over the screen. It's neater looking, I suppose, but the window contents are harder to see at a glance.

Does anyone know of a way to revert to old Exposé behavior?
 
Don't know if it's possible. I'd imagine not, but I'm often surprised. On a side note, maybe give it a few weeks before trying to 'fix' it. SL is only a few days old and some of the dislike might be due to unfamiliarity and not suckiness.
 
Yes it is a bit about unfamiliarity. I for one hate the new exposé and don't see myself accepting it anytime soon, or ever. Windows should always show their relative size, I don't want to have my downloads window the same as my main browser window. And that goes for the ~15 windows I always have open.

I really have to wonder why Apple doesn't offer much choices in system settings, there's always just one choice to use even though there should definitely be a setting to switch exposé behaviour. In before all the apologists cry "if you don't like it, don't use our OS".
 
I hate it.

I don't want to see minimised windows either... that's the bloody reason I minimised them! I can see them in the bloody Dock..

That is the one thing about Snow Leopard I hate. I really didn't see the need to change Expose - it was pretty much flawless as it was in terms of what it did and how it laid them out.

Yes, Snow Leopard's method looks neater since it is in a grid, but it isn't as effective or as easy.
 
Kilamite said:
I hate it.

I don't want to see minimised windows either... that's the bloody reason I minimised them! I can see them in the bloody Dock..

That is the one thing about Snow Leopard I hate. I really didn't see the need to change Expose - it was pretty much flawless as it was in terms of what it did and how it laid them out.

Yes, Snow Leopard's method looks neater since it is in a grid, but it isn't as effective or as easy.
Click to expand...

I minimise into the applications icon rather than a new one in the dock so i like it, i really like the new expose.
 
The old expose is awesome and really improved my workflow. With the new expose I have to site an stare at the screen and mouse over different windows to figure out what I'm even looking at. Relative window sizes are part of what made expose so useful. It's as if they hired a windows engineer to redesign it: all of the shine, none of the utility.

I've search through the prefs files and can't find anything about putting it back the way it was. I guess it's time to say goodbye to expose. A once good feature that just doesn't do anything anymore.
 
I like the below-window text. I don't particularly care for the non-relative sizes. I also don't really care for the showing of minimized windows (though it doesn't come up much for me). I'm neutral about the blue outline. And I actually do like the new Exposé dock features.
 
I hope there's away to get the old proportioned size of windows back. I don't really mind the minimized windows, the titlebar, the zooming in with the spacebar, or the blue highlighting (I replaced the texture) but PLEASE bring the old sizes back!:(
 
Same problem, this is extremely aggravating. I used to just click the windows because i knew their size, now i have to go and squint to read the text. Anyone know a fix? Thanks!
 
same problem here.
I think it is possible to do that with a couple of ports or even just copy the old expose related files to the new system.
Any1 has any idea?
 
I'm another one who finds the new Expose awkward. It's not natural or intuitive. The 10.5 version put the windows where you expected to see them - in their relative positions and size. It's just wrong to have a window in the upper right of the display end up in the lower left during Expose.

Perhaps the new method works better if you have a LOT of open windows in a single Space - if so, the "Apple" way would be for it to scale-up its grid placement depending on window density (number of open windows). But, as it is, it's just confusing when you only have a half-dozen windows open.

If you haven't sent feedback to Apple on this, do so. Remember the translucent menu-bar fiasco? I truly believe it was removed (thankfully, IMO) because of customer feedback (it's still an option, though).
 
I sent feedback requesting that the old behaviour be reinstated as an option. Expose used to be almost like an extension of my body, the workflow was so natural... now it's clunky, unintuitive, and difficult to use.
 
Agreed - nice to know I'm not the only one with a problem. Surely there's a tweak or option somewhere that will revert to the old version though?
 
I love the new Exposé! Why do so many people hate it? Is it because it's changed?
 
TheSpaz said:
I love the new Exposé! Why do so many people hate it? Is it because it's changed?
Click to expand...
Because they new one has removed a lot of the functionality of the old expose. For example, in Adium, if I had the my contact list and a chat window open, with the chat window covering most of the contact list, I would invoke application-window expose to reveal the contact list to see who was online. Old expose would keep the windows at the same size, and would merely shift the chat window over to reveal the contact list. This let me actually read the contact list, and if I wanted to, make a quick mouseover to activate that window.

In new expose, instead of the windows subtly revealing themselves, they completely change places on the screen. While it may look neater, it is much less useful because of the drastic change of position. Also, the windows aren't readable.

New expose is manifestly less useable and intuitive than old expose. New expose may have a "cleaner" look, but it comes at the expense of its usability.
 
Kilamite said:
I hate it.

I don't want to see minimised windows either... that's the bloody reason I minimised them! I can see them in the bloody Dock..

That is the one thing about Snow Leopard I hate. I really didn't see the need to change Expose - it was pretty much flawless as it was in terms of what it did and how it laid them out.

Yes, Snow Leopard's method looks neater since it is in a grid, but it isn't as effective or as easy.
Click to expand...

Are you kidding me? No need to change Expose? Do you ever code? Use Photoshop? Write up Word documents? Do useful stuff with your computer other than surfing internet and watching youtube? The old expose was USELESS when you had many documents open, as they would all shrink to unreadable sizes and you had to scroll over them one by one. Ditto with coding which is even worse because it'll give you a headache to try to find the section of code you're working on since it all looks the same so you need to scrub through every single window, which aren't aligned by the way and aren't always in the same position either.

The new Expose is amazingly useful now. Although only a few things need improving (the ugly blue outline, tiny window sizes taking up too much room and no app sorting on default) it's a much better implementation compared to the original expose. You can alphabetically sort them for better arrangement of documents compared to the random scatter. I mean seriously, in 10.5 expose, open 25 windows of safari, you get 1 row of 25 tiny windows. That's better??? Are you bonkers?

I believe the new Expose was designed with the engineer in mind rather than the consumer. Because it lets you do a lot more document related work compared to just surfing the web or making movies. I think you guys are just complaining about change. There is nothing to indicate there is less usage and intuition, and there are hundreds of reasons why the new system is much better.
 
wankey said:
The old expose was USELESS when you had many documents open, as they would all shrink to unreadable sizes and you had to scroll over them one by one. Ditto with coding which is even worse because it'll give you a headache to try to find the section of code you're working on since it all looks the same + scrolling them gives you weird file names to memorize.

I mean seriously, in 10.5 expose, open 25 windows of safari, you get 1 row of 25 tiny windows. That's better??? Are you bonkers?
Click to expand...

I do code in Java, use Photoshop and obviously write up Word documents. I don't see your point... I never had an issue with Expose and doing all three of those things at once.

If you are coding and have lots of different secions/classes open, and you open Expose in Snow Leopard, they'll still be small.

If you have loads of classes open for coding and use Expose to switch between them, then you are using a very ineffective workflow method. CMD+` is far better - switch between windows in a single application. Switch between open classes.

Your point doesn't make any sense. My annoyance with Snow Leopard is it doesn't scale windows - so if I have a big full window of code, and a small window, the big window of code is small, and the small window is the same size as it actually is on my desktop!

Please use screenshots if you are to make any sense.
 
I still find the new Exposé highly usable. Actually, I want to use it more than I did with the old Exposé. The old Exposé was just too chaotic. Your windows were merely scattered all over the screen in no particular order. Now at least they line the windows up in a row so they're easy to look at. Also, I like how you don't have to hover your cursor over each window to see what the title is.

Note: If you wanna see who's online... cmd-tab to iChat or Adium. If your buddy list is hidden, just hit cmd-1. It's also not hard to click the iChat or Adium icon in the Dock. I don't think Exposé was made for viewing the content of your windows, it's for displaying ALL of your open windows in an organized fashion so you can easily find the window you want to switch to... not to check which buddies are online.
 
Kilamite said:
I do code in Java, use Photoshop and obviously write up Word documents. I don't see your point... I never had an issue with Expose and doing all three of those things at once.

If you are coding and have lots of different secions/classes open, and you open Expose in Snow Leopard, they'll still be small.

If you have loads of classes open for coding and use Expose to switch between them, then you are using a very ineffective workflow method. CMD+` is far better - switch between windows in a single application. Switch between open classes.

Your point doesn't make any sense. My annoyance with Snow Leopard is it doesn't scale windows - so if I have a big full window of code, and a small window, the big window of code is small, and the small window is the same size as it actually is on my desktop!

Please use screenshots if you are to make any sense.
Click to expand...

Cmd ` doesn't work very well. You still have to read the title and parts of the code to quickly glimpse which window you're on. And if you have a lot of windows open, you're screwed. My workflow works well in Windows since the window is always in the same place in the taskbar. The new expose is literally a taskbar replacement, ie it places the title underneath the thumbnail window. It's always in the same spot if you use application sort. So you don't even need to find your window, just click that area.

Doesn't make sense? my point is your complaining about a pointless feature that wasn't really a huge boost for Expose. Windows were everywhere, and you had to scrub through them to find out which window you wanted. Before you had to learn how to scan quickly to find your window. Now, you simply need muscle memory as windows don't change position as much, their titles are neatly outlined underneath them, and it's a much better use of the space compared to the original Expose (I believe I made a thread about this issue)

Also, expose in spaces is now amazingly useful compared to previous implementation. I agree that it is a small annoyance that a 1280x800 window takes the same amount of space as a 400x200 window. But it really is a minor annoyance.
 
wow I'm actually surprised by this thread, which reminds me that I shouldn't be anymore... anyway, I personally love the new Exposé, for me it's the best new "visible" feature in SL. The only thing I don't like the the ugly blue outline, but other than that I couldn't be happier.

The whole scalable discussion I can understand from some perspective, but for me it's perfect like it is now. I have dual 24" monitors, one horizontal, one vertical, and I use 6 spaces — meaning that when I activate spaces to have a look to see them all at the same time (to easily move around apps and windows) most windows are just a few pixels each unless they are full sized apps. Now with this new Exposé even those tiny little windows can easily be found and moved around between spaces.

So far I haven't had much use for the new dock-activated-Exposé, mainly because I don't use the dock that much, but from my short experience this new Exposé is a huge improvement.
 
TheSpaz said:
Note: If you wanna see who's online... cmd-tab to iChat or Adium. If your buddy list is hidden, just hit cmd-1. It's also not hard to click the iChat or Adium icon in the Dock. I don't think Exposé was made for viewing the content of your windows, it's for displaying ALL of your open windows in an organized fashion so you can easily find the window you want to switch to... not to check which buddies are online.
Click to expand...
I don't like using the keyboard. I have hotcorners for expose, which made the workflow very smooth. It's now very clunky
 
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