I just tried this freeware Windows program, which was recommended by a colleague (Thanks, Ben!), and I am very impressed.
StrokeIt – Mouse Gestures for Windows
If you’ve ever used Mouse Gestures, in say, Mozilla or Firefox, then this will be very familiar to you – it’s the same concept except that it can be configured to work globally in the Windows environment and in all applications. Fully configurable, you choose which gestures map to which operations.
It’s a time saver, because although you’re still using the mouse to say, minimize or close a window, you are doing a very broad gesture and not trying to find and click on a tiny little button. In other words, much less accuracy is required.
In general, I find it productive to use the keyboard whenever I can instead of the mouse, but some common operations don’t have a key shortcut (like Minimize) and others have an awkward key shortcut (like Close => Alt+F4). This nicely fills those gaps.
Actually, one of my favorite windows “productivity tips” is to use the alt-space menu for window management. ALT-SPACE pops up a menu that allows you to maximize/resize windows, and (I believe) minimaize also. By adding on the menu shortcut key, you can do it all from the keyboard. So ALT-SPACE x or ALT-SPACE n should do the trick.
I’ve also found that Linux/KDE has some cool enhancements like middle-click on the maximize button to expand the window vertically, and so forth.
Hey Jud,
Here’s another key shortcut: Windows+D will toggle between showing the desktop and back to the previous state. A few more of those are listed here
I also really like TaskSwitchXP Pro and WinKey and AutoHotKey, all of which are free and most of which I think I’ve written about in other posts.
I found a tool cooler than StrkeIt, a task switcher named Mouse Gesture Task Switcher (mgSwitch). You can draw a letter shape to switch between windows. No need to hold any mouse buttons, just move your mouse to activate the mouse gesture.