8 ms·

I find this funny, in that I struggle with Mac all the time. The worst grievance lately is that I don't know how to just pop back and forth between three windo

by taeric 5y ago

I find this funny, in that I struggle with Mac all the time. The worst grievance lately is that I don't know how to just pop back and forth between three windows. Something about the way command tab works just kills my ability to reason about what the window stack currently is. And, for the life of me, I never get copy paste from a terminal to work like I want it to.

vosper 5y ago
You might like to try rcmd? No affiliation, and I’ll add that it didn’t work on my external MS Natural keyboard, so I stopped using it. But I like the idea. Perhaps it would work for you? https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/ https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
Window switching on mac has always driven me mad. I cut my teeth on windows so that is probably why. Why can’t one switch between windows of the same application on MacOS with a modifier+tab combination?
- ladberg 5y ago
  It's Cmd-`, which is close enough to tab that I find it very handy
Steltek 5y ago
Headed in the other direction (Linux at home to Mac at work) for years now, I can't understand what the fuss is about with Mac keyboard shortcuts. In my experience, I don't find them consistent, useful, or pleasant to use. You hit the nail on the head with alt-tab. alt-tab is universal. Hell, alt-tab works on Android if you hook up a keyboard to it. Mac is the only thing where alt-tab falls on its face. Even if you remind yourself that you're on Mac and use cmd-tab, it cycles between apps, not windows. You need to use cmd-` for that. I often find myself in a cycle of using 3 windows across 2 apps and it drives me bonkers.
- saurik 5y ago
  > Mac is the only thing where alt-tab falls on its face. Even if you remind yourself that you're on Mac and use cmd-tab... But alt on a Windows keyboard layout and and command on a Mac keyboard layout are the same key location, so I don't understand how you can be confused by this... maybe stop looking at the keyboard?
  - xenomachina 5y ago
    The bigger issue is that command-tab switches between apps, not windows, and command-` switches between windows in the same app, and neither work across spaces. I ended up installing https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ which adds a keystroke that will cycle through all windows in all apps on all spaces. It's a huge improvement.
    - itazula 5y ago
      Command left/right arrow, for example, switches between terminal windows in different spaces, and to terminal windows within the same space as well. Press the shift key as well to shift between tabs. (At least on my MacBook Pro's Japanese keyboard.) I don't recall have modded this behavior.
      - xenomachina 5y ago
        That's definitely better than command-`, thanks. It's still not as nice as alt-tab, though. Frequently most of my windows are a mix of terminals and browser windows. I may be using several web apps and several command-line tools. Having to think about whether the application I want to switch to happens to be using the same "shell" application is not helpful. I just want to be able to use one key to cycle through all windows in all spaces, and which lets me easily flip between the two most recent windows. Windows (and virtually every Linux DE) has had this for decades. It amazes me that macOS only recently got this, and only because of a third-party tool.
    - PostThisTooFast 5y ago
boplicity 5y ago
Make your desired windows fullscreen, then swipe side to side on the trackpad (3 or 4 fingers) to switch between them almost instantly. One of the best features of MacOS, IMO.
- llampx 5y ago
  Really nice, unless you have a big-ish screen. It is jarring to have the entire screen slide back and forth, and of course a bad use of screen real estate.
- howinteresting 5y ago
  If almost instantly means 700 milliseconds on a regular monitor and 950 milliseconds on a 21:9 monitor, sure, instantly.
- diffeomorphism 5y ago
  Gnome does the same. Slow, jarring and pretty useless for mouse+keyboard or displays larger than laptop sized. "Just swish your virtual desktops around" seems extremely convoluted when I just want to switch between different windows.
- ccouzens 5y ago
  But it doesn't work so well if you prefer to use a conventional external mouse. I was stuck using the shortcuts (ctrl + left or right arrow key), or clicking the Mission Control button I had to pin to the Dock.
6LLvveMx2koXfwn 5y ago
I struggled with Mac on my M1 Air for about six months then donated it to my partner and returned to Fedora on an XPS 13. Muscle memory was bad enough but the feeling of being watched was worse.
- hazza_n_dazza 5y ago
  Little Snitch is pretty good to stop unwanted network connections on OSX
na85 5y ago
>And, for the life of me, I never get copy paste from a terminal to work like I want it to. Doesn't command+c/command+v work?
- taeric 5y ago
  I think most of my trouble is highlighting the part I want copied. Can't remember, and I now do most of my work in emacs. Such that I am now used to all of my editor buffer being treated the same.
  - na85 5y ago
    Fair enough. I use emacs as well, but apple touchpads are good enough that frankly it's probably faster for me to just highlight text in iterm2 with the mouse (which is what I do). In emacs I use the standard C-spc shortcuts, though. None of my work is particularly terminal-heavy, thankfully.
    - taeric 5y ago
      I suspect that I probably just notice the times in the terminal that it is hard for me. I also use a rollermouse. Which, I love, but I have found I am nowhere near as accurate with it as I probably should be.
lwouis 5y ago
I made a FOSS alt-tab drop-in for macOS: https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ I also list alternatives on that page. That may inspire you
- gundamdoubleO 5y ago
  Thanks for making this, I installed it the other day after switching to a Mac for work and being really frustrated with the default alt+tab behaviour.
- xiaomai 5y ago
  I hate the mac my work makes me use, but this makes it a bit less painful. Thank you.
- oweiler 5y ago
  Exactly what I was looking for, thx!
PostThisTooFast 5y ago
Apple messed up its Alt-Tab implementation with one simple blunder: It doesn't restore minimized apps. I tab TO an application, but when I'm done I minimize it out of the way. But then you can't Command-Tab back to it, because Apple keeps it uselessly minimized.
diffeomorphism 5y ago
> I never get copy paste You can just use middle click everywhere, no? One checkbox in the clipboard manager and done. Btw ctrl+shift+v to paste is often much more useful than ctrl+v, e.g. for emails, and is the exact same in the terminal.

by taeric 5y ago

vosper 5y ago

You might like to try rcmd? No affiliation, and I’ll add that it didn’t work on my external MS Natural keyboard, so I stopped using it. But I like the idea. Perhaps it would work for you? https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/ https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

Window switching on mac has always driven me mad. I cut my teeth on windows so that is probably why. Why can’t one switch between windows of the same application on MacOS with a modifier+tab combination?

ladberg 5y ago
It's Cmd-`, which is close enough to tab that I find it very handy

Steltek 5y ago

Headed in the other direction (Linux at home to Mac at work) for years now, I can't understand what the fuss is about with Mac keyboard shortcuts. In my experience, I don't find them consistent, useful, or pleasant to use. You hit the nail on the head with alt-tab. alt-tab is universal. Hell, alt-tab works on Android if you hook up a keyboard to it. Mac is the only thing where alt-tab falls on its face. Even if you remind yourself that you're on Mac and use cmd-tab, it cycles between apps, not windows. You need to use cmd-` for that. I often find myself in a cycle of using 3 windows across 2 apps and it drives me bonkers.

saurik 5y ago
> Mac is the only thing where alt-tab falls on its face. Even if you remind yourself that you're on Mac and use cmd-tab... But alt on a Windows keyboard layout and and command on a Mac keyboard layout are the same key location, so I don't understand how you can be confused by this... maybe stop looking at the keyboard?
- xenomachina 5y ago
  The bigger issue is that command-tab switches between apps, not windows, and command-` switches between windows in the same app, and neither work across spaces. I ended up installing https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ which adds a keystroke that will cycle through all windows in all apps on all spaces. It's a huge improvement.
  - itazula 5y ago
    Command left/right arrow, for example, switches between terminal windows in different spaces, and to terminal windows within the same space as well. Press the shift key as well to shift between tabs. (At least on my MacBook Pro's Japanese keyboard.) I don't recall have modded this behavior.
    - xenomachina 5y ago
      That's definitely better than command-`, thanks. It's still not as nice as alt-tab, though. Frequently most of my windows are a mix of terminals and browser windows. I may be using several web apps and several command-line tools. Having to think about whether the application I want to switch to happens to be using the same "shell" application is not helpful. I just want to be able to use one key to cycle through all windows in all spaces, and which lets me easily flip between the two most recent windows. Windows (and virtually every Linux DE) has had this for decades. It amazes me that macOS only recently got this, and only because of a third-party tool.
  - PostThisTooFast 5y ago

boplicity 5y ago

Make your desired windows fullscreen, then swipe side to side on the trackpad (3 or 4 fingers) to switch between them almost instantly. One of the best features of MacOS, IMO.

llampx 5y ago
Really nice, unless you have a big-ish screen. It is jarring to have the entire screen slide back and forth, and of course a bad use of screen real estate.
howinteresting 5y ago
If almost instantly means 700 milliseconds on a regular monitor and 950 milliseconds on a 21:9 monitor, sure, instantly.
diffeomorphism 5y ago
Gnome does the same. Slow, jarring and pretty useless for mouse+keyboard or displays larger than laptop sized. "Just swish your virtual desktops around" seems extremely convoluted when I just want to switch between different windows.
ccouzens 5y ago
But it doesn't work so well if you prefer to use a conventional external mouse. I was stuck using the shortcuts (ctrl + left or right arrow key), or clicking the Mission Control button I had to pin to the Dock.

6LLvveMx2koXfwn 5y ago

I struggled with Mac on my M1 Air for about six months then donated it to my partner and returned to Fedora on an XPS 13. Muscle memory was bad enough but the feeling of being watched was worse.

hazza_n_dazza 5y ago
Little Snitch is pretty good to stop unwanted network connections on OSX

na85 5y ago

>And, for the life of me, I never get copy paste from a terminal to work like I want it to. Doesn't command+c/command+v work?

taeric 5y ago
I think most of my trouble is highlighting the part I want copied. Can't remember, and I now do most of my work in emacs. Such that I am now used to all of my editor buffer being treated the same.
- na85 5y ago
  Fair enough. I use emacs as well, but apple touchpads are good enough that frankly it's probably faster for me to just highlight text in iterm2 with the mouse (which is what I do). In emacs I use the standard C-spc shortcuts, though. None of my work is particularly terminal-heavy, thankfully.
  - taeric 5y ago
    I suspect that I probably just notice the times in the terminal that it is hard for me. I also use a rollermouse. Which, I love, but I have found I am nowhere near as accurate with it as I probably should be.

lwouis 5y ago

I made a FOSS alt-tab drop-in for macOS: https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ I also list alternatives on that page. That may inspire you

gundamdoubleO 5y ago
Thanks for making this, I installed it the other day after switching to a Mac for work and being really frustrated with the default alt+tab behaviour.
xiaomai 5y ago
I hate the mac my work makes me use, but this makes it a bit less painful. Thank you.
oweiler 5y ago
Exactly what I was looking for, thx!

PostThisTooFast 5y ago

Apple messed up its Alt-Tab implementation with one simple blunder: It doesn't restore minimized apps. I tab TO an application, but when I'm done I minimize it out of the way. But then you can't Command-Tab back to it, because Apple keeps it uselessly minimized.

diffeomorphism 5y ago

> I never get copy paste You can just use middle click everywhere, no? One checkbox in the clipboard manager and done. Btw ctrl+shift+v to paste is often much more useful than ctrl+v, e.g. for emails, and is the exact same in the terminal.