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• 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. Holding down Shift and clicking or Option+clicking causes the Exposé effect to occur in slow motion.

To enable the blob, enter the following commands in Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app):

1. $ defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool true
2. $ killall Dock

To disable the blob, repeat the above steps replacing true with false.

• 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. Unfortunately 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 easily fixed by using the show all function (which is set to default F9).

To enable this function simply enter the following command into the Terminal

1. $ defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool false
2. $ killall Dock

To disable this function repeat the above steps replacing false with true.

• A number of third-party applications that attempt to mimic Exposé are available for other platforms. My Exposé is one such application, available for Windows Vista. Compiz and Beryl, experimental compositing window managers for 3D accelerated X servers, also have a plugin (called "scale") which adds a similar feature.
• Flip 3D, a feature in Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, bears a slight resemblance to Exposé, and offers similar functionality.
• Exposé makes extensive use of undocumented features of the Core Graphics framework.
• Holding shift and pressing the assigned Exposé key will cause the animation to happen in slow motion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposé_ »

Blue ball script

My preferred shell scripting language is BASH, so I wrote a little script to start and stop the ball.

#!/bin/bash

if [ "${1}" == "-h" ] || [ "${1}" == "--help" ] | [ "${1}" == "" ]; then
  echo "
        Usage: ball on          (turns on the touchable blue ball)
             : ball off         (turns off the touchable blue ball)
"
  exit
fi

if [ "${1}" == "off" ]; then
  defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool false
  killall Dock
fi
if [ "${1}" == "on" ]; then
  defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-floater -bool true
  killall Dock
fi

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Please prepend comments below including a date

2012-02-07