Fortunate Bear Announces Illuminate 1.2, the Mac Window Switcher

May 9, 2012 in Utility

[prMac.com] Castro Valley, California - Fortunate Bear today is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Illuminate 1.2, an update to its application and window switcher for Mac OS X. Illuminate 1.2 improves the window switching functionality by consolidating many of cycle modes into one, assigning it a more obvious keyboard shortcut, reducing the number of keystrokes, and allowing window switching without UI. The update also adds tab support for Chrome, the ability to exclude certain applications, and options for sorting windows. The update is free for existing customers, $9.99 for new customers, and is available from Fortunate Bear's online store or Apple's Mac App Store.

Cycle Windows, the primary way users cycle through windows and applications in Illuminate, has received a major overhaul in the 1.2 update. First, Cycle (All) Windows and Cycle (All) Tabs have been consolidated into one feature: Cycle Windows. Cycle Windows cycles through all the windows and tabs, but they're now grouped by application. The Cycle Windows keyboard shortcut default has been changed to Option-Tab, since it can now be used to switch between applications by cycling through windows and tabs. Additionally, sticky mode has been turned off by default, so the user can switch windows with fewer keystrokes. Finally, the user can specify a delay between when the keyboard shortcut is pressed and the UI shows up. This means the user can quickly switch between windows or tabs without the UI flashing up or having to wait on it.

The 1.2 update also adds other often requested features. In addition to being able to recognized and switch to Safari tabs, 1.2 adds the ability to see and switch between Google Chrome tabs. Also, the user can now exclude certain applications from showing up when switching between windows, and can also change the order the windows appear in: either by last accessed or alphabetical.

1.2 also includes some more minor updates. These include optimizing the layout the cycle windows UI so that more of the space is used by the window thumbnails instead of being wasted. Also, the update includes some stability fixes for crashing bugs.

System Requirements:
* Mac OS X 10.6 or later
* Intel based Macintosh
* 2.1 MB of disk space

Pricing and Availability:
Illuminate 1.2 is $9.99 (USD) and is available through Fortunate Bear's online store or Apple's Mac App Store. Review copies are available upon request.

Fortunate Bear is a software company dedicated to creating software for humans using the Mac and iOS platforms. Founded in 2011 by Andy Finnell, Fortunate Bear is headquartered in the San Francisco East Bay. Copyright 2012 Fortunate Bear, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

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Andy Finnell
President

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