AltTab – Windows alt-tab on macOS • Hacker News Board

Re: AltTab – Windows alt-tab on macOS

#141

Post by nick_ » Wed, May 11, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

nsonha wrote: post #109

klodolph wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference is largely a historical artifact of the Macintosh operating system not originally supporting "multitasking." This is a nice story, but reading on it seems like you're saying that the way app switching works on Windows as the Obvious and Correct thing to do, and that the Macintosh way of doing things is nothing more than a choice that was made too long ago to change. Honestly, that's absurd. The Macin…

this is actually quite an objective matter, most humans think visually and they will create a mental map of the WINDOWS in their mind, not the APPS. So making the subject of the action an abstract thing they can't see (the app, sometimes) would be the absurd thing.

Exactly. When I have some files open, I don't actually care what the application is. I don't care to keep a hierarchy of the owning applications in my mind. Whether a docx file opened in Word, Libre, Pages, TextEdit, or whatever... that doesn't matter. The file/document is the context. The application which opened it is just an implementation detail in the "app" paradigm.

I may have chosen the applications on my machine for many reasons, but ultimately I want to switch between files/documents because they are the real context. The rest is noise.

Re: AltTab – Windows alt-tab on macOS

#142

Post by mr_november » Wed, May 11, 2022, 5:55 PM UTC

abdusco wrote: post #116

mr_november wrote: post #38

This is cool but as a long time macOS user who is now on Windows at least half time, I really miss Cmd + Tab application switching when on Windows. Anyone know of a way to get that behaviour in Windows?

If you pin (you don't have to) an app to the taskbar, you can hit [Win] + [index num] on the keyboard and it switches to app at that index. Keep hitting the num key and you switch between the windows of that app. Pinning the app will assign it an index (the icon won't change position) so you can switch to windows of your editor with Win+2 and windows of file explorer with Win+1 without even looking at the taskbar, fo…

Thank you for this. Have been trying to train my brain to use it for weeks, but as I'm sure you know, the limitation is I have to maintain context of what app I'm using when wanting to window switch whereas a global shortcut a la Cmd + Tab eliminates that bit of overhead.

Re: AltTab – Windows alt-tab on macOS

#143

Post by binarycrusader » Wed, May 11, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

yodon wrote: post #105

binarycrusader wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows launched after the Mac Only by a little bit of time in some regards; for Windows 1.0 Microsoft first presented it to the public on November 10, 1983. The first retail release, originally slated for release in April 1984, Windows 1.01, was instead released on November 20, 1985. System 1, the classic Macintosh System Software was released in January 1984. Also, yes, the Lisa was arguably the first to ship with…

Windows 1.0 was technically a thing but as you probably know the thing the rest of the world thinks of as Windows didn't really launch until Windows 3 (and arguably didn't really fully ship until 3.11)

Sure, but for some odd reason, I happened to be attending a school in the Midwest where Windows 1.x was in use fairly early on. Of course, that same school district also had computers running CP/M, some Apple //s, and Macintosh computers.

I agree though that Windows probably hit its market stride around 3.x, especially with Windows for Workgroups which brought serious competition for Novell.

Re: AltTab – Windows alt-tab on macOS

#144

Post by phil-martin » Wed, May 11, 2022, 11:57 PM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #90

krferriter wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It enables you to actually switch between windows, not between applications. If you have 3 windows of Chrome open, on Mac if you alt-tab to it it raises all 3 windows to the top of the desktop window stack, hiding any other windows which may overlap with one of these Chrome windows. This is very inconvenient if you want to be able to still see another window, say, TextEdit, you have open but it becomes hidden by Chro…

Command-tab already does this. Just keep holding command, use the up/down arrow to drill into the windows for the selected application. Play around with it you’ll figure it out. It looks like this tool just simplifies it and gets rid of the hierarchy, so you don’t have to remember which application owns the window you’re looking for.

That sounds really useful, but I've tried every combination I can think of, and tried to read documentation, but I can't get my Mac to do that.

I press command+tab, keep holding command, and then press up or down arrow, and the list of application icons just fades from view.

Any chance you could point me in the right direction?