7 ms·

It's interesting. Microsoft agreed with this philosophy and fought tooth and nail against tabbing in browsers, opting instead that each browser tab be it's own

It's interesting. Microsoft agreed with this philosophy and fought tooth and nail against tabbing in browsers, opting instead that each browser tab be it's own window and accessible from the task bar. After all other browsers had switched, they were forced to introduce that in IE as well. The worst offender here is OSX. I still haven't figured out a good way to switch between multiple open windows of the same application, not even the file explorer (Finder). It's a huge pain.

ctrlrsf 6y ago
Just press Command-` to switch between windows of the same application. Command-Tab to switch between windows of other applications.
- kilburn 6y ago
  Note that on a US keyboard the ` (backtick) key is the one right below ESC. If you have the keyboard in another locale (I use ES-intl) that hotkey doesn't make any sense at all: ` is next to "p" in my keyboard, and works only as a dead key. Cmd-` is literally impossible to use on it. If you are in this situation, do yourself a favor and remap the "move focus to next window" hotkey [1]. It is very useful and I couldn't live without it now. [1] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/280220/how-to-change-the-default-shortcut-for-move-focus-to-next-window-to-something https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/280220/how-to-chan...
  - emidln 6y ago
    ` (backtick) is also right above tab. On a US keyboard, this makes Cmd+Tab switch apps and Cmd+` switch windows of an app. It's probably worth noting that the defaults remain on common Linux (at least KDE, GNOME, and Cinnamon) and Windows desktop shells with Alt instead of Cmd. On Linux, Windows, and OSX, adding Shift cycles in reverse order.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  I got so used to this I made M-` switch between frames in emacs on Windows (work environment).
- symlinkk 6y ago
  Weirdly enough this doesn't work when apps are in full screen mode, which Apple has been pushing lately.
- zelos 6y ago
  Or Ctrl-Down to get Mission Control (Exposé) for the current application's windows only
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
michaelmrose 6y ago
They were wrong. Emphatically. Ridiculously wrong. Remember for context that virtually nobody was using virtual desktops for windows as it not part of the UI unless you installed it and it sucked besides. Also remember most people's internet was very very slow. Screens were also not that big. Not that they are much bigger now with everyone using laptops. Grouping related windows in the task bar makes it frustrating to use it because everything involves multiple clicks. Once you got beyond a certain number of apps the task bar sucked without grouping because there wasn't enough text to display a long enough label to distinguish between windows. When something takes a long time to load you are incentivized to create a new tab if you might want to come back to that resource rather than waiting for it to load again. This absolutely incentivizes using multiple tabs. If you have 8-12 browser windows + 2 or 3 other windows you are already past the threshold where you have to group windows in the task bar to use it and are now changing tabs by moving your mouse at the way to the bottom of the screen clicking on the browser icon and then hunting for the desired text then clicking again. This is in a word annoying. if your browser supports tabs you can have 2-3 other windows and 2 browser windows and use an ungrouped taskbar. You can also hit one hotkey to open a new tab or use in browser tab switching in place of all desktop window switching to switch between several. This is much much much better. Even if all other sins were removed the browser tabs represent a logical grouping and additional context that would be lost with just windows. I can close them as a group I can book mark them as a group I can save them for later perusal as a group. I can use a side tab extension to more easily switch between a large number of tabs. I can right click on a link and open several links in the background without changing my current context. They designed a user interface that was only useful for grandma opening 1 browser window at a time and maybe 2 apps at a time.
- stormbrew 6y ago
  They weren't wrong, they just did an awful job of making it so individual apps wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel to get tabs. There's no reason browsers should have to implement it themselves or that other apps shouldn't be able to have the same semantics. Ironically the pieces were there with MDI but that was also a bad implementation of the same semantic concept. For whatever reason, only tiling wms like i3 have ever really delivered at all on the concept of making tabbing a universal thing.
choosegoose 6y ago
I've found https://contexts.co/ https://contexts.co/ to be the best solution for OSX. It wont let you ⌘+tab through the browser tabs but if you have multiple windows of the browser open you can see them individually.
RussianCow 6y ago
> The worst offender here is OSX. I still haven't figured out a good way to switch between multiple open windows of the same application, not even the file explorer (Finder). I use HyperSwitch[0] on macOS to solve this issue. I use it to override the default Cmd+Tab behavior to cycle through windows on the current desktop. It's become one of the first things I install on a new machine. [0]: https://bahoom.com/hyperswitch https://bahoom.com/hyperswitch
- pixel_fcker 6y ago
  Cmd-~
  - RussianCow 6y ago
    This only works if you already have the relevant app focused, which is an additional piece of state that I shouldn't need to keep in my mental stack.
rewgs 6y ago
Cmd+tab for apps, cmd+` for apps' windows.
giantrobot 6y ago
Cmd+` will tab between windows of the current application.

ctrlrsf 6y ago

Just press Command-` to switch between windows of the same application. Command-Tab to switch between windows of other applications.

kilburn 6y ago
Note that on a US keyboard the ` (backtick) key is the one right below ESC. If you have the keyboard in another locale (I use ES-intl) that hotkey doesn't make any sense at all: ` is next to "p" in my keyboard, and works only as a dead key. Cmd-` is literally impossible to use on it. If you are in this situation, do yourself a favor and remap the "move focus to next window" hotkey [1]. It is very useful and I couldn't live without it now. [1] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/280220/how-to-change-the-default-shortcut-for-move-focus-to-next-window-to-something https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/280220/how-to-chan...
- emidln 6y ago
  ` (backtick) is also right above tab. On a US keyboard, this makes Cmd+Tab switch apps and Cmd+` switch windows of an app. It's probably worth noting that the defaults remain on common Linux (at least KDE, GNOME, and Cinnamon) and Windows desktop shells with Alt instead of Cmd. On Linux, Windows, and OSX, adding Shift cycles in reverse order.
Jtsummers 6y ago
I got so used to this I made M-` switch between frames in emacs on Windows (work environment).
symlinkk 6y ago
Weirdly enough this doesn't work when apps are in full screen mode, which Apple has been pushing lately.
zelos 6y ago
Or Ctrl-Down to get Mission Control (Exposé) for the current application's windows only

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

michaelmrose 6y ago

They were wrong. Emphatically. Ridiculously wrong. Remember for context that virtually nobody was using virtual desktops for windows as it not part of the UI unless you installed it and it sucked besides. Also remember most people's internet was very very slow. Screens were also not that big. Not that they are much bigger now with everyone using laptops. Grouping related windows in the task bar makes it frustrating to use it because everything involves multiple clicks. Once you got beyond a certain number of apps the task bar sucked without grouping because there wasn't enough text to display a long enough label to distinguish between windows. When something takes a long time to load you are incentivized to create a new tab if you might want to come back to that resource rather than waiting for it to load again. This absolutely incentivizes using multiple tabs. If you have 8-12 browser windows + 2 or 3 other windows you are already past the threshold where you have to group windows in the task bar to use it and are now changing tabs by moving your mouse at the way to the bottom of the screen clicking on the browser icon and then hunting for the desired text then clicking again. This is in a word annoying. if your browser supports tabs you can have 2-3 other windows and 2 browser windows and use an ungrouped taskbar. You can also hit one hotkey to open a new tab or use in browser tab switching in place of all desktop window switching to switch between several. This is much much much better. Even if all other sins were removed the browser tabs represent a logical grouping and additional context that would be lost with just windows. I can close them as a group I can book mark them as a group I can save them for later perusal as a group. I can use a side tab extension to more easily switch between a large number of tabs. I can right click on a link and open several links in the background without changing my current context. They designed a user interface that was only useful for grandma opening 1 browser window at a time and maybe 2 apps at a time.

stormbrew 6y ago
They weren't wrong, they just did an awful job of making it so individual apps wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel to get tabs. There's no reason browsers should have to implement it themselves or that other apps shouldn't be able to have the same semantics. Ironically the pieces were there with MDI but that was also a bad implementation of the same semantic concept. For whatever reason, only tiling wms like i3 have ever really delivered at all on the concept of making tabbing a universal thing.

choosegoose 6y ago

I've found https://contexts.co/ https://contexts.co/ to be the best solution for OSX. It wont let you ⌘+tab through the browser tabs but if you have multiple windows of the browser open you can see them individually.

RussianCow 6y ago

> The worst offender here is OSX. I still haven't figured out a good way to switch between multiple open windows of the same application, not even the file explorer (Finder). I use HyperSwitch[0] on macOS to solve this issue. I use it to override the default Cmd+Tab behavior to cycle through windows on the current desktop. It's become one of the first things I install on a new machine. [0]: https://bahoom.com/hyperswitch https://bahoom.com/hyperswitch

pixel_fcker 6y ago
Cmd-~
- RussianCow 6y ago
  This only works if you already have the relevant app focused, which is an additional piece of state that I shouldn't need to keep in my mental stack.

rewgs 6y ago

Cmd+tab for apps, cmd+` for apps' windows.

giantrobot 6y ago

Cmd+` will tab between windows of the current application.