BetterTouchTool 0.6

BetterTouchTool is an excellent tool for any Mac with a trackpad. It allows you to create your own personalized trackpad gestures and apply a variety of actions to them. It also has other features that don't have anything to do with trackpads or mice, like window snapping and application launching.

BetterTouchTool really has got to be in the top 10 apps ever built for the Mac. And it is still under development. It allows you to speed up your workflow and to substitute your mouse with a trackpad.

You can access the preferences from the menu bar icon. The "Gestures" window allows you to start creating your gestures. There are different tabs for the Magic Mouse, a Trackpad or the Magic Trackpad, the keyboard and a normal mouse. You can add new gestures from the bottom of the screen by clicking on "Add new gesture". Then, you select what gesture to use and what action you want for that gesture. You can even assign keyboard shortcuts to the gestures in addition to a predefined action.

I am using this app with my Macbook trackpad. I set for example a 4-finger click to show the BTT (BetterTouchTool) preferences, a 5-finger click to maximize windows, etc. You can add as many as you want, and there is a very neat feature that allows you to print a list of your gestures for reference.

The Window snapping tool is another great feature for easily managing windows á la Windows. You simply drag the windows to the top or sides of the screen to maximize them or snapping them to the left or right edge of the screen, respectively. This works better on single-display setups, though.