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Cmd-Tab is annoying. There's multiple layers to why it's so annoying: 1. Cmd-Tab doesn't switch between windows, it switches between apps. This seems like not

by d3nj4l 5y ago

Cmd-Tab is annoying. There's multiple layers to why it's so annoying: 1. Cmd-Tab doesn't switch between windows, it switches between apps. This seems like not that big of a deal (you lose being able to quickly switch between windows of the same tab, you have to Cmd-` for that) until: 2. Apps can have multiple windows on multiple spaces, and Cmd-Tab preferences windows on your current space. Let's say you have apps A1 and A2, with windows A1W1 and A2W1 on space S1, and window A1W2 on space S2. Let's assume you're on window A2W1 and your goal is to get to A1W2. You have to switch to the app, then press Cmd-` to switch to A1W2! 3. Of course, this also means that the space you switched from has changed to have A1W1 on top! So if your spaces are actually monitors, this means you aren't looking at A2W1 and A1W2 together. So you finally give up and use mission control to arrange your windows, but now you're using the mouse. The best solution I've found for this is using Hammerspoon's window switcher shortcuts, which work like Windows Alt-Tab. There's an open source app with just that functionality if you don't want to use Hammerspoon, but Hammerspoon's great so there's no reason not to go all the way.

zdw 5y ago
I'll concur on how amazing Hammerspoon is - one Lua file that lets you write hotkey binds to literally anything you could possibly do on the system. I use mine for resizing/throwing windows all around the system, for custom global hotkeys for controlling music playback, etc. (also MacPorts > Homebrew, but that's a different discussion)
- d3nj4l 5y ago
  Yeah, and it's got so many useful APIs it's nuts. There's a keyboard-based expose API that is like Mission Control but with vimimum/tridactyl's follow mode. It's insanely useful when you need to jump to a window you opened ages ago and is therefore at the bottom of the alt-tab list. That's useful enough as it is, but then you can filter the windows that show up in expose, so you can make an expose just for your terminal windows! Legitimately amazing.

by d3nj4l 5y ago

zdw 5y ago

I'll concur on how amazing Hammerspoon is - one Lua file that lets you write hotkey binds to literally anything you could possibly do on the system. I use mine for resizing/throwing windows all around the system, for custom global hotkeys for controlling music playback, etc. (also MacPorts > Homebrew, but that's a different discussion)

d3nj4l 5y ago
Yeah, and it's got so many useful APIs it's nuts. There's a keyboard-based expose API that is like Mission Control but with vimimum/tridactyl's follow mode. It's insanely useful when you need to jump to a window you opened ages ago and is therefore at the bottom of the alt-tab list. That's useful enough as it is, but then you can filter the windows that show up in expose, so you can make an expose just for your terminal windows! Legitimately amazing.