A couple days back, we posted a hint on using Witch on Macs with multiple displays. The hint explained how to use Terminal to make Witch appear on the display containing the mouse, instead of on the main display.

The feedback from this hidden feature was quite strong, so we decided to make it much simpler to implement. In Witch 3.5.4 (update via in-app updating, or from the Witch page), a new drop-down menu on the Behavior tab now allows you to choose where the Witch panel appears.

If you use multiple displays, try this out—you may find, as I do, that Witch is much easier to use when it appears on the screen you’re actively working on.

Update: This hint is no longer necessary, as this functionality is now built into Witch (as of version 3.5.4). Only use this hint if you’re intentionally running an older version of Witch.

If you use Witch and have more than one display on your Mac (as I do), you may sometimes find it frustrating when Witch pops up on your main screen while you’re working on your second screen.

This bugged me enough that, at some point in Witch’s history, I asked Peter to allow the Witch panel to appear on whichever display contained the mouse pointer. Given how crowded Witch’s preferences already were, and that we weren’t certain this would be widely used, Peter created it as a hidden preference…which I then forgot to document in our release notes. Whoops!

I use Witch like this regularly now, and had forgotten it wasn’t standard behavior until I received an email this morning, asking about support for multiple displays. So for those of you who would like to make use of this hidden Witch feature, here’s how to do it.

1. Open Witch’s System Preference panel and quit Witch.
2. Open Terminal (in Applications → Utilities), paste the following text, and press return:
   defaults write ~/Library/Application\ Support/Witch/Settings "Appear On Mouse Screen" -bool TRUE
3. Open Witch’s System Preference panel and re-enable Witch.

Now when you activate Witch, it will appear on the screen containing the mouse pointer. It took me a few minutes to get used to the change, but once I did, it feels like the way Witch should work on a multi-monitor setup. (If you try this and decide you don’t like it, you can reverse things by repeating all the above steps, but change TRUE to FALSE in the Terminal command.)

We’re also looking at possibly adding an option to show Witch’s panel on all attached displays, but we need to test it and see if it slows down the interface too much.

Macworld is doing their annual GemFest, covering the best of of free and low-cost software. Last week, we were thrilled to see Leech included in the GemFest…and this week, Witch makes an appearance.

Not just an appearance, but an appearance with a perfect five-mouse rating. Having worked for Macworld, I know how rare the five mouse rating is—I think I only handed out a few of them in my nearly five years with Macworld. So Peter and I are, needless to say, thrilled with Macworld’s feelings on Witch.

With that said, we’re even more excited about what we’ve got on the drawing board for Witch 4—we’ve got a list of 30+ new and/or improved features that we’re contemplating for the next major release of Witch. (There’s no timeline for a release as of yet; Witch 3 has only been out for a few months.)

Today we released Witch 3.5.2, and for once, we actually didn’t sneak in any new features (I know, you’re in disbelief). Just two minor bug fixes, one of which affected apps with windows in other Spaces when Witch’s Spaces support was disabled. The other cropped up when the key repeat rate was set to ‘off’ in the Keyboard System Preferences panel.

You can read those two sentences again on the official release notes page, but really, there’s no need—that’s really all that’s there!

You can get the update via Witch’s in-app updater, or download the full program from Witch’s product page.