Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Alt-tab-macos – Windows-style alt-tab on macOS

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 127 posts

Re: Show HN: Alt-tab-macos – Windows-style alt-tab on macOS

#81

Post by mFixman »

donatj wrote: post #40

Do people know about CMD+Tilde to switch windows within an app? CMD+Tab to the App and Tilde to the Window? It’s not mentioned in the READMEs description of how macOS tab switching works, so I’m curious if the author knows.

That still makes it impossible to switch from a particular window of an app to a particular window of another.

My biggest issue with Cmd+Tab is the surprise factor. Pressing that shortcut may do nothing, raise a window, raise a lot of windows, restore a minimised window, or move to another workspace; there's no way to know what will happen until you press it.

Re: Show HN: Alt-tab-macos – Windows-style alt-tab on macOS

#82

Post by mFixman »

K0SM0S wrote: post #30
rubyn00bie wrote: post #5

I'm excited to give this a try, though I wonder if there's a way to replace command tab with it instead of control tab. This little bit of UX is seriously one of those things you notice in Windows, if you're primarily a Mac user, and go "holy shit, I'm missing out." Windows 10, faults aside, actually does have some pretty clever UI/UX in spots that I really wish Apple would just "steal," because it (MacOS) sort of fe…

Wait until you discover some basic features of KDE or Gnome (especially the former) on Linux then. Using KDE, both MacOS and Windows 10 feel like it's 2009 all over again, by comparison. I just don't understand why MS and Apple don't steal the best stuff, it's literally 'free' as in beer, and so much more important to a good UX compared to the slew of useless features both these commercial vendors keep on piling up..…

Don't forget always-on-top.

I shouldn't have to install a new browser that does hacky things with OSX just to keep a YouTube video on top of my workspace.

Re: Show HN: Alt-tab-macos – Windows-style alt-tab on macOS

#83

Post by greggman2 »

I have never enjoyed the distinction between apps, app windows, and in app windows. 25 years of alt+tab/Ctrl+tab/cmd+tab and I still can never switch to the thing I want. My mind is stuck on one hotkey that I want to mean "switch back to the last thing I was looking at" but that doesn't work because if the last thing was another app or another tab or window in the same program then I would need a different key. My brain doesn't want to have to remember that. it just wants "back to the last active thing" whatever that thing was.

this bite me every day for 25 years . example on desktop. I switch tabs by clicking a tab. want to back to the last tab. I do the "one" action (cmd-tab) and get a different app instead of the last tab. so it's cmd-tab again and then click the tab. Sometimes I press cmd-tab multiple times before my brain realizes I need to click a tab.

I'm often switching between editor (or 2), terminal, browser, and apps so this idea that I have to always no the exact state I'm and deliberately consciously pick one of 3 different key combos to switch seems crazy to me.

The same thing happens on mobile. swipe up and pick previous window is my action to get back to the previous thing so when I want to switch back to the previous tab I always without fail by swiping up and then curse that the device didn't do what I want and instead I need to click the "display tabs icon". Again I'll be juggling multiple apps so the fact that the thing I want "go back to last thing" is inconsistent always mean the ux is failing me

Re: Show HN: Alt-tab-macos – Windows-style alt-tab on macOS

#84

Post by evrydayhustling »

greggman2 wrote: post #83

I have never enjoyed the distinction between apps, app windows, and in app windows. 25 years of alt+tab/Ctrl+tab/cmd+tab and I still can never switch to the thing I want. My mind is stuck on one hotkey that I want to mean "switch back to the last thing I was looking at" but that doesn't work because if the last thing was another app or another tab or window in the same program then I would need a different key. My br…

Amen. OS app/window distinction sucks because the OS doesn't really know what users experience as an app. We might have a dozen apps open inside chrome, or the same IDE configured for two massively different tasks.

Now that users juggle not just multiple apps and windows, but tabs and accounts and devices, the OS should stop pretending it's privy to our workflow - or give us a better way to configure it.

Re: Show HN: Alt-tab-macos – Windows-style alt-tab on macOS

#85

Post by zapzupnz »

PunksATawnyFill wrote: post #66
allworknoplay wrote: post #65

I use Witch by ManyTricks for this. I refused to get a mac until someone told me about it — I find switching to a program first and then to the correct window totally insane. Witch is very configurable and pretty performant — once in a while it feels sluggish but generally it’s quite good. Interested to try this too!

That's Apple for you. They should have abandoned the dumb one-menu-for-all-apps idea with the OS X transition, but nope. That would entail learning. Then again, they DID implement Command-Tab app switching from Windows... but managed to screw it up by not restoring the app from a minimized state when you switch to it.

All I read is "blah blah blah it's not exactly the same as Windows".

Re: Show HN: Alt-tab-macos – Windows-style alt-tab on macOS

#86

Post by zapzupnz »

PunksATawnyFill wrote: post #69
fortran77 wrote: post #39

Wow! I remember when Windows users would try to put Apple-style features on Windows. (Interestingly, the "dock" was first on Windows, with StarDock, etc, before OSX had theirs).

Meanwhile, Mac users STILL don't get a real Delete key; they get a Backspace key mislabeled "delete."

It's been called Delete on Macs since day 1. What you call the 'Delete' key, Mac users call 'Forward Delete'.

Re: Show HN: Alt-tab-macos – Windows-style alt-tab on macOS

#87

Post by mschuster91 »

temporallobe wrote: post #14

I used to think I needed a third-party app for window switching in macOS, until I discovered Command + ` (back-tick) shortcut- which switches between windows of the sane app. Now I use it combination with Command + Tab and my workflow is so much easier. In fact, I wish Windows had this feature sometimes, but I do think Windows’ window switching is better and more intuitive.

For me with six different Chrome profiles, multiple Outlook windows, IDEs and messengers this is useless, as I often have to work in profile 1, then go to app 2 and then to chrome profile 3 - with hyperswitch it's simple, alt-tab until I hit the window I need. With command-backtick (which in Germany isn't the backtick but the > symbol!) it's awkward for the fingers and I would have to do cmd-tab, cmd-backtick, cmd-tab, cmd-backtick... you get the idea.

Re: Show HN: Alt-tab-macos – Windows-style alt-tab on macOS

#88

Post by woutr_be »

donatj wrote: post #40

Do people know about CMD+Tilde to switch windows within an app? CMD+Tab to the App and Tilde to the Window? It’s not mentioned in the READMEs description of how macOS tab switching works, so I’m curious if the author knows.

I've used MacOS for almost 10 years, and I wasn't aware of cmd+`. My pain point with cmd+tab has always been that it's just switching between applications, not windows.

Re: Show HN: Alt-tab-macos – Windows-style alt-tab on macOS

#89

Post by Fnoord »

frou_dh wrote: post #70
donatj wrote: post #40

Do people know about CMD+Tilde to switch windows within an app? CMD+Tab to the App and Tilde to the Window? It’s not mentioned in the READMEs description of how macOS tab switching works, so I’m curious if the author knows.

Somewhat related... if you're using a Mac and haven't taken the time to understand the difference between Hide (Cmd-H) and Minimize (Cmd-M) then you're missing out.

Interesting, thanks for the lesson.

Keybinds like these are amazing with spatial design such as Finder, Nautilus, or the way Gimp worked before it went with the Photoshop redesign.

Re: Show HN: Alt-tab-macos – Windows-style alt-tab on macOS

#90

Post by climb_stealth »

frou_dh wrote: post #76
climb_stealth wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you care to elaborate? I'm not an expert and minimising has always been this frustrating accidental combination where you have to use the cursor to get the window back up from the dock and command+tab doesn't work anymore. [0] is the first result on stackoverflow but it still seems unclear to me. [0] https://superuser.com/a/51775

MacOS has a much stronger distinction between applications and windows than MS-Windows does. The Cmd-Tab switcher deals with apps, not windows. Similarly, Hide (Cmd-H) and Hide Others (Opt-Cmd-H) operate on app(s), while Minimize (Cmd-M) operates on a window. When an app is Hidden, it will come back into view when you select it using the Cmd-Tab switcher. The gist is that people who aren't experienced with MacOS over…

Thanks, that is a great explanation! I will give it a try and see if it improves my life at work.
Post reply on HN