
Remove Finder from the Application Switcher in Mac OSX - dzello
http://blog.joshdzielak.com/blog/2012/02/12/remove-finder-from-the-app-switcher-in-mac-osx/
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crazygringo
But if you're Cmd+Tabbing between your two apps, the Finder is always the 3rd
icon and you never get to it.

You'll literally never accidentally tab into the Finder unless you press
Cmd+Tab,Tab -- which is awfully hard to do by accident.

The author says Finder "has an insatiable thirst for keystrokes". I say
accidentally Cmd+Tabbing into the Finder is one of the strangest complaints
about OSX I've ever come across.

~~~
dzello
(from the author) Can totally understand how for some folks this isn't an
issue at all. But for spastic me it was a stubborn one I found myself losing
time on. Perhaps in part because I have my repeat rate jacked way up using
KeyRemap4Macbook - <http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/>.

I'd Cmd-Tab my way into Finderland a few times a day and inadvertently trigger
new Finder windows instead of new Chrome windows with Cmd+N - stuff like that.

Getting Finder out of the rotation prevents this from happening. While I still
might double-tab back to the original window, I usually spot that before too
much typing b/c it's where my eyes originally were looking.

And aesthetically I'll always take the less number of icons when I can.

~~~
pudquick
Umm, why not quit it instead?

In Terminal / iTerm2:

defaults write com.apple.Finder QuitMenuItem 1

Relaunch and now you get a Quit menu (in menubar and in contextual menu on
Dock)

Quit it when you don't need it, Dock launch it when you want it back.

~~~
sodiumphosphate
I just did; thanks!

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jackalope
When I'm using an application that freezes with a spinning pinwheel, I can Cmd
+ tab to the Finder and get to the Force Quit utility in the Apple menu. While
it's true that I can switch to any other running application and do the same,
I find it comforting that the Finder will always be there if I have only one
app open and it freezes on me.

[Yes, I realize there's also a keyboard shortcut for Force Quit, but I don't
know what those symbols even stand for, since they're not on my keyboard
(except for that Cmd 4-leaf clover thingy), so I can't type them here, and
won't be able to look them up if I'm stuck in a frozen app with no way out.]

There are a lot of reasons to hate the Finder, but I don't feel like this is
one of them.

~~~
smhinsey
I've used Macs since OS 8 and I don't quite get the symbols myself. It's
command-option-escape, for future reference.

~~~
ken
I've used Macs since System 6, and I can't keep them straight, either.

The weird thing is that Apple's _non-US_ keyboards have (most of) the icons:
<http://store.apple.com/de/product/MB110DK/B>

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stephen_mcd
Thank you for posting this, it had always bothered me. The other problem I
have with the task switcher is switching to minimised applications does
nothing. Anyone have a similar fix for that?

Edit: On Lion the path is slightly different from the one in the article, it's
/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Info.plist

~~~
cleverjake
hold down option once it is tabbed to and it will unminimize it.

~~~
dpcx
That's cool. But is there a way to make that the default behavior?

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m_antis
Why do I keep getting the following message when I use sudo?: "You don’t own
the file “Info.plist” and don’t have permission to write to it. You can
duplicate this document and edit the duplicate. Only the duplicate will
include your changes."

I'm running Lion 10.7.3

~~~
m_antis
Never mind. I was trying to use TextEdit. Using the VI editor works perfectly.

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mbrzuzy
Anyone else have the finder still on the dock as a shortcut and unable to drag
off?

~~~
yottabyte47
You cannot remove Finder or Trash from the Dock. (leastways without hacking)

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invisiblefunnel
Looks like the OSX menu bar is lost when all applications are closed.

