Window's Alt+Tab also causes the Z-ordering of the windows to be most-recently-used. OS X's Cmd+Tab will surface all windows of a particular application to the top of the stack in their relative order, so if you have say, two browser windows, one you want and one that's been backgrounded with some long running train of thought, that (currently irrelevant) window is surface over the rest of whatever you're working on. Often I find this just gets in the way.
The Windows model more closely matches what I as a user want; when I'm switching, I have a particular window in mind, not any window, not all windows. Alt+Tab makes that more easily accomplished than Cmd+Tab/Cmd+`.
OS X's WM also seems to have an issue where, for whatever reason, when I Cmd+Tab to an application, it'll choose not the last active window, but one window in particular, even if that window is on a different, not focused workspace and there are windows from that application in this workspace. For whatever reason, it really likes my personal Chrome profile at work, at will switch to it at all costs, which is Grade A annoying during a presentation.
I'm familiar with this. I have rebinded these, but basically I use them everyday for tab switching, for example within 1 chrome window, of within 1 terminal window.
The reason I made this window-switcher is that sometimes I have something I know I opened a while ago, but I don't want to think about which app holds it, then use the macOS app-switcher (command-tab) to switch to that app, then select the tab/window (with the mouse, or by cycling alt-`).
I want a big mosaic with my windows, and instantly identify and focus on that window I remember the visual traits of.
macOS offers exposé for that purpose, but it is unfortunately not keyboard operable. Also I prefer the Windows approach of having a the thumbnails on a timeline so my eyes have some references instead of scanning the whole screen every time with exposé.
Actually, alt+tab seems to do nothing on my macOS. Why not use that? I'd actually have the same shortcuts as on windows, which I also use.
I'd also love to adjust the delay. Seems very slow now.
Otherwise, this is beautiful.
Agree with this. Ctrl + ↑ triggers exposé. But the windows cannot be selected with the keyboard, unlike Ctrl + ↓, which triggers exposé(?) within the current app, and one can select a window using arrow keys.
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.
0: https://superuser.com/questions/186863/command-backtick-isnt...
[0] is the first result on stackoverflow but it still seems unclear to me.
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 overuse Minimize and underuse Hide/HideOthers. And sadly seem prone to being obnoxious in their ignorance on the subject [0]
Keybinds like these are amazing with spatial design such as Finder, Nautilus, or the way Gimp worked before it went with the Photoshop redesign.
I am perfectly happy with the default behavior of CMD+TAB for switching between apps - mainly because, as in every other DE, CMD+TAB has a memory and will allow you to toggle immediately between "last used". So, no matter what order the app-stack is in, you can switch to some app with CMD+TAB and then rapidly switch back and forth.
BUT, CMD+` has no such memory. You cannot switch to a different window of an app and then rapid-fire CMD+` back and forth.
Put simply: the behavior of CMD+` and CMD+TAB are different, but shouldn't be.
This has been the case since forever (in my case, Leopard) and it makes me wonder what people who actually work at Apple are doing with their computers that they did not hate-fix this 11 years ago.
Update: Looking into non-us keyboards, this is way less convenient. Italian keyboards don’t even have a tilde? How do they program?
...
hence why as a young programmer the best ever present I got from my mother was a US layout keyboard, and never looked back. With AltGr deadkeys I can even write things that are Italian, like "È", but cannot be done on an Italian keyboard (there is no such letter on the keyboard, and one has to rely on the word processing sofware to properly capitalise it if "è" comes after an end of sentence).
Italian keyboards are shit for writing Italian, _and_ for programming.
On Linux, quite comfortably, thanks to the power of Alt modifiers (which I first got acquainted with on the Amiga), tilde is just Alt+"ì". BTW I don't have to recall ASCII codes of accented characters or leave the keyboard unless I have to type some really odd ones. I just type Alt+<accent symbol>. Thus I can type foreign words like Åland or Khazad-dûm in a fraction of a second with ease from the comfort of my keyboard...
Würstels, crême caramel... È facile. Yes "È". Italian users on Windows always have issues typing uppercase accented characters... you can easily spot Italian Linux users by their uppercase text: PERCHÈ È COSÌ FACILE? Most (Windows) users will instead type: PERCHè è COSì. The most intrepid ones might even resort to "'" - PERCHE' E' COSI'. So sad.
My ~2 cents.
Wait, it is not Alt+"key above tab" by default regardless of layout (like for example in gnome)?