Finder 7 has the ability to hide all windows save those in the active layer. This feature appears under the application switching menu just to the right of the Balloon Help menu.
Using ResEdit 2.1 you can assign this feature a Command Key. I use it when I've got a program or two open and need to go back to the Finder and see the desktop including trash icon and disk icons. If you assign the "Hide Others" command the same command key as the "Show All" command you can hit that key to toggle the condition since only one of these commands is active at a time – the other is greyed out.
Here’s what is it looks like when you want to hide other windows.
(Note that the "Show All" command is greyed out).
And here’s what it looks like when you want to show all the windows. (Note that this time the "Hide Others" command is now greyed out, as are the other two open applications: Microsoft Word and ResEdit).
As long as you assign these the same key you can use it to toggle the condition. I use the back slash key since a letter might interfere with the operation of some programs.
Here’s how to do it:
1) Make a copy of the System File.
2) Open the copy with ResEdit 2.1 and open the resource named "MENU".
3) Scroll to the Menu named "Maura" and double click on it. Click on the "Hide Others" command and select the text box for command keys. Type a backslash "\".
4) Do the same for the "Show All" command and quit ResEdit saving the changes.
5) Drag the existing System file from the System Folder to another window. Drag the copy of the System file into the System Folder and make sure it is named "System". Restart your Mac. Voilà! You can now toggle excess windows on and off.
