Zephyr: A simple and elegant way to switch between your running applications

Originally downloaded 2/05/06. A former shareware menu task switcher goes freeware. I’ve added it to my evaluation list.

Update 10/6/06. I guess I was expecting more when I downloaded this earlier in the year. After trying it out just now, I had a distinct “Where’s the Beef?” moment.

It’s a good thing RadicalBreeze made Zephyr freeware… after all, it does so little that it’s functionality is already available for free as part of many other applications, including Apple’s own Dock and its Application Switcher (Cmd-Tab). Even if you must have a menubar item that displays all currently running applications, grab a copy of Butler. You can use Butler for nothing more than that if you like, or you can dip into its rich, deep bag of tricks to do even more cool things. There are other freeware options besides Butler that do this, but certainly Butler would be my choice if I didn’t want to spend any money.

In practice, I would never use such a menu item at all, since the Cmd-Tab app switcher is easier. Several of the apps I’ve bought over the years will put a “running apps” item in your menubar as one of their standard tricks. Examples: iKey, YouControl, ClawMenu. I still use iKey and ClawMenu daily, but not for this feature.

Version as tested: 2.4.