6 ms·

For Mac users asking "how is this different from the keystrokes I already have", this app is designed to give you Windows-style switching which is subtlety but

by yodon 4y ago

For Mac users asking "how is this different from the keystrokes I already have", this app is designed to give you Windows-style switching which is subtlety but fundamentally different from OSX-style window switching. MacOS is app-centric, so you have a keystroke to switch between apps and a keystroke to switch through the windows of the app. Windows is window-centric rather than app-centric, with a unified window stack so a single keystroke (Alt-Tab) always takes you to the previous window, regardless of what app is responsible for that window. Repeated Alt-Tab's take you back through your most recently used windows, regardless of the Apps involved. OSX users generally can't imagine not knowing what apps their windows are associated with, and Windows users generally can't imagine being expected to care what apps their windows are associated with. The difference is largely a historical artifact of the Macintosh operating system not originally supporting "multitasking." When the Mac first came out, it could only run one application at a time. If you wanted to switch between a spreadsheet and a word processor you had to close one application and open the other. Then the concept of a "switcher" was invented, which gave you the sense that the Mac was running multiple applications because it could do app-to-app context switching behind the scenes to make it feel like you were running multiple applications simultaneously. All of this meant there was no OS-level concept of "the window stack" there was only an app-level concept of window history, and a separate OS-level concept of app history. Windows launched after the Mac, into an era of slightly more powerful processors and better understanding of user behavior on truly multi-application devices. These differences led Microsoft to adopt an OS-level unified window history model. Apple undoubtedly discussed the idea, but even by the time Windows launched Mac users were fully accustomed to the Mac's windowing model and would have complained mightily at the conceptual switch had it been attempted then or at any other point in time. The more time you spend in one ecosystem, the more natural its approach feels to you, because you adapt to your environment over time.

40four 4y ago
I appreciate your detailed explanation, I came to the comments for exactly this reason. “How is Windows ‘Alt-tab’ any different”. I hate to say, I’m still not following you :) I have spent plenty of time developing of both Mac & Windows systems. I still can’t think of any difference in behavior. What you said In Windows ”with a unified window stack so a single keystroke (Alt-Tab) always takes you to the previous window”, this is the same on Mac. A single press of “Cmd-tab” always goes to the previous window. So if you press it, release & repeat, you will just keep toggling the same two windows. Same behavior. Mac, as you mentioned gives you an extra layer, where you can cycle windows of the same App ‘type’ with “Cmd - `”. Which I find very useful, and actually miss when I’m on Windows. What am I missing? “Alt - tab” & “Cmd - tab” have the same behavior, no? Then Mac gives you the extra “Cmd - `”. Why would I want them Windows behavior? Maybe I should just download it and try for myself haha.
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  Let's say you have Firefox and Chrome open, each with two windows. alt+tab on Windows cycles between all 4. cmd+tab on Mac cycles between each apps most recently focused window. Hold cmd and press tab on a Mac, notice that it doesn't even show windows, it shows app icons.
  - 40four 4y ago
    Ahhh… okay I get it now. I’m a little slow sometimes :) That’s a good example. So “Cmd - tab” brings all the windows of a particular app to the forefront, but shows the most recent, while the others are ‘buried’. Then requiring the “Cmd - `” to dig out the older ones. Yeah it’s subtle, but I see the difference now, thanks for setting me straight!
    - oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
      > but shows the most recent Apart from when, due to a bug in recent macOS, it brings up a different window. Which is incredibly frustrating.
  - klodolph 4y ago
    Note that you also can cycle between any window with command-tab. Press command-tab, and while holding command, press up or down arrow. This will drill into the windows for that application and let you select a specific window, without first bringing that application to the front.
    - 40four 4y ago
      Oh, nice tip! I didn’t know that one.
jonny_eh 4y ago
As a former Windows, but now Mac, user I find Mac's system to work just fine. Especially once you learn that cmd+~ switches between the current app's windows. Plus, 4-finger swipe up shows all the current open windows.
- JoBrad 4y ago
  I’m in the same situation. I open new browser windows all the time, to display information on one screen, and interact with something in a browser, on another screen. Having to switch the keyboard shortcuts up because certain windows are owned by a different app is quite jarring. Most of the time I just want to go back to the window I was last looking at, regardless of which app it was.
- oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
  I wish window switching worked in the same way as app switching, though. The former acts like a stack while the latter acts like a queue - I have no idea why.
- lupire 4y ago
  Works fine until half your "apps" are actually browser windows, and exhausting trying to remember which key do you use based on which app you need to switch to.
  - ahefner 4y ago
    Or terminals.
- klodolph 4y ago
  You can also use the up/down arrow when you have the app switcher open to drill into the windows for that application.
klodolph 4y ago
> 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 Macintosh has a menu bar at the top of the screen which belongs to the foreground application. This is a reasonable place to put a menu bar, because it is easy to click on things which are at the edge or (better yet) corner of the screen. This is a perfectly reasonable justification for having a foreground application. Windows places the menu bar inside each window. So there is no need for "foreground application", only foreground window. That's all that you need in terms of explanation. The Mac puts its menu bar at the top of the screen, Windows puts it inside each window. There's no need to tell some story about how the Macintosh was created during a more primitive era of computing history, because that story has no explanatory power.
- alphachloride 4y ago
  With window-specific menus, I can directly click on and open the menu button of another app/window without first having to focus it first to see the menu options. I find that to be more intuitive. I have always been a windows user and my intuition was shaped accordingly. So to me that is the obvious and correct thing to do.
  - klodolph 4y ago
    I find it faster to use the keyboard. On the Mac, I can switch to the browser or terminal and open a new window with cmd-tab and followed by cmd-N.
  - oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
    It's actually surprising to me that the behaviour you describes works as it does. I would expect the first click to focus the window, then a second click to be required to open the menu. Does that mean that, if you want to focus a window, you have to find 'dead space' to click on if you don't want some other side effect?
wolpoli 4y ago
> Windows launched after the Mac, into an era of slightly more powerful processors and better understanding of user behavior on truly multi-application devices. These differences led Microsoft to adopt an OS-level unified window history model. Yet Microsoft seems to be walking away from this model. The Windows Taskbar was built on that, but has since diverged quite a bit from that model. The Windows 95 taskbar originally showed one entry per Window, until Windows XP started grouping Windows together when the Taskbar gets too crowded. Then Windows 7 started hiding the labels and made the Taskbar into a combined program launcher/window switcher, which now made the behavior of clicking on the icon itself very inconsistent, depending on the state of the program: - when no instance of the program is running - shows the launching program animation and launches the program and brings the window on top - when program has one window minimized - shows the unminimizing animation and brings the window on top - when has one window not in focus - brings the window on top - When program has one window on top - shows the minimizing animation and minimizes the window - When program has multiple windows - opens the Taskbar Live Preview
saghm 4y ago
The biggest annoyance for me on MacOS is that apps that I need to leave open but don't have windows open still show up in the switcher. When I'm on my work laptop, I still have to tab through Finder, the VPN app, etc. he rare times I need to work on the Java part of our codebase, I use the ssh remote beta for Intellij, which seems to open something called "Gateway", which is totally reasonable except that it adds yet _another_ entry to the cmd-tab menu. At this point, almost half of my cmd-tab menu is stuff that doesn't even have windows open. Back when I used MacOS more I had used something that I had gotten from the App Store way back (I think it was called "Witcher" or something), but with all the management software that the company has running in the background, the system already lags a decent amount every now and then, so I don't really want to add any more stuff for the management softwware to take up CPU time scanning. (I recognize that last part isn't specific to MacOS, but I can't help but feel like a user friendly OS would have better options built in specifically for cases where customization might not otherwise be desirable).
- klodolph 4y ago
  I think a big part of this is just the fact that desktop is overall not a priority these days for anyone. The app developers could easily enough prevent their app from showing up in the switcher, and there are apps that do that—like Quicksilver, Display Menu, etc.
- blacksmith_tb 4y ago
  It's pretty easy to quit the Finder if you don't need to mess with files graphically [1]. Once you've set that you can also use cmd-q to do that when you're cmd-tabbing through apps (if something else re-opens it). 1: https://www.howtogeek.com/259378/how-to-quit-the-finder-in-os-x/ https://www.howtogeek.com/259378/how-to-quit-the-finder-in-o...
binarycrusader 4y ago
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 the Desktop graphical interface most like the Macintosh prior to that even. I'd posit that both Windows and Macintosh graphical user interface designs started around the same time effectively due to the market and depending on whether you were in the education or business sector, you could perceive the pervasiveness of each wildly differently. I personally believe the Macintosh designers' early choice to heavily lean on skeuomorphic designs and its popularity in the nascent Desktop computer publishing industry reinforced the architectural multi-tasking choices made early in its development.
- yodon 4y ago
  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)
  - binarycrusader 4y ago
    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.
gms7777 4y ago
I was one of the mac users that made that comment -- my point wasn't that this application isn't useful, it was that the landing page doesn't even try to explain why its useful.
fnord123 4y ago
Floating toolbars were an interesting flourish to show off the capabilities of GUIs (Photoshop being the most famous application to take advantage of this). And with floating toolbars, the application switching model made sense. But when virtual desktops landed on the Mac, it was a ridiculous hassle to move an application to a new desktop because there's tonnes of windows to move around. Now various programmes that used to use floating toolbars have moved to use main windows that hold all the toolbars (Photoshop being the most famous application to have done this). With multiple monitors more prevalent now, the application switching model is definitely broken. Command-tab raises all windows for an application across all monitors. This is super annoying. I mean, even Gnome gets this wrong but at least there's a toggle to fix it. I hope Apple can come to terms with this and fix it some day.

by yodon 4y ago

40four 4y ago

I appreciate your detailed explanation, I came to the comments for exactly this reason. “How is Windows ‘Alt-tab’ any different”. I hate to say, I’m still not following you :) I have spent plenty of time developing of both Mac & Windows systems. I still can’t think of any difference in behavior. What you said In Windows ”with a unified window stack so a single keystroke (Alt-Tab) always takes you to the previous window”, this is the same on Mac. A single press of “Cmd-tab” always goes to the previous window. So if you press it, release & repeat, you will just keep toggling the same two windows. Same behavior. Mac, as you mentioned gives you an extra layer, where you can cycle windows of the same App ‘type’ with “Cmd - `”. Which I find very useful, and actually miss when I’m on Windows. What am I missing? “Alt - tab” & “Cmd - tab” have the same behavior, no? Then Mac gives you the extra “Cmd - `”. Why would I want them Windows behavior? Maybe I should just download it and try for myself haha.

jonny_eh 4y ago
Let's say you have Firefox and Chrome open, each with two windows. alt+tab on Windows cycles between all 4. cmd+tab on Mac cycles between each apps most recently focused window. Hold cmd and press tab on a Mac, notice that it doesn't even show windows, it shows app icons.
- 40four 4y ago
  Ahhh… okay I get it now. I’m a little slow sometimes :) That’s a good example. So “Cmd - tab” brings all the windows of a particular app to the forefront, but shows the most recent, while the others are ‘buried’. Then requiring the “Cmd - `” to dig out the older ones. Yeah it’s subtle, but I see the difference now, thanks for setting me straight!
  - oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
    > but shows the most recent Apart from when, due to a bug in recent macOS, it brings up a different window. Which is incredibly frustrating.
- klodolph 4y ago
  Note that you also can cycle between any window with command-tab. Press command-tab, and while holding command, press up or down arrow. This will drill into the windows for that application and let you select a specific window, without first bringing that application to the front.
  - 40four 4y ago
    Oh, nice tip! I didn’t know that one.

jonny_eh 4y ago

As a former Windows, but now Mac, user I find Mac's system to work just fine. Especially once you learn that cmd+~ switches between the current app's windows. Plus, 4-finger swipe up shows all the current open windows.

JoBrad 4y ago
I’m in the same situation. I open new browser windows all the time, to display information on one screen, and interact with something in a browser, on another screen. Having to switch the keyboard shortcuts up because certain windows are owned by a different app is quite jarring. Most of the time I just want to go back to the window I was last looking at, regardless of which app it was.
oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
I wish window switching worked in the same way as app switching, though. The former acts like a stack while the latter acts like a queue - I have no idea why.
lupire 4y ago
Works fine until half your "apps" are actually browser windows, and exhausting trying to remember which key do you use based on which app you need to switch to.
- ahefner 4y ago
  Or terminals.
klodolph 4y ago
You can also use the up/down arrow when you have the app switcher open to drill into the windows for that application.

klodolph 4y ago

> 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 Macintosh has a menu bar at the top of the screen which belongs to the foreground application. This is a reasonable place to put a menu bar, because it is easy to click on things which are at the edge or (better yet) corner of the screen. This is a perfectly reasonable justification for having a foreground application. Windows places the menu bar inside each window. So there is no need for "foreground application", only foreground window. That's all that you need in terms of explanation. The Mac puts its menu bar at the top of the screen, Windows puts it inside each window. There's no need to tell some story about how the Macintosh was created during a more primitive era of computing history, because that story has no explanatory power.

alphachloride 4y ago
With window-specific menus, I can directly click on and open the menu button of another app/window without first having to focus it first to see the menu options. I find that to be more intuitive. I have always been a windows user and my intuition was shaped accordingly. So to me that is the obvious and correct thing to do.
- klodolph 4y ago
  I find it faster to use the keyboard. On the Mac, I can switch to the browser or terminal and open a new window with cmd-tab and followed by cmd-N.
- oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
  It's actually surprising to me that the behaviour you describes works as it does. I would expect the first click to focus the window, then a second click to be required to open the menu. Does that mean that, if you want to focus a window, you have to find 'dead space' to click on if you don't want some other side effect?

wolpoli 4y ago

> Windows launched after the Mac, into an era of slightly more powerful processors and better understanding of user behavior on truly multi-application devices. These differences led Microsoft to adopt an OS-level unified window history model. Yet Microsoft seems to be walking away from this model. The Windows Taskbar was built on that, but has since diverged quite a bit from that model. The Windows 95 taskbar originally showed one entry per Window, until Windows XP started grouping Windows together when the Taskbar gets too crowded. Then Windows 7 started hiding the labels and made the Taskbar into a combined program launcher/window switcher, which now made the behavior of clicking on the icon itself very inconsistent, depending on the state of the program: - when no instance of the program is running - shows the launching program animation and launches the program and brings the window on top - when program has one window minimized - shows the unminimizing animation and brings the window on top - when has one window not in focus - brings the window on top - When program has one window on top - shows the minimizing animation and minimizes the window - When program has multiple windows - opens the Taskbar Live Preview

saghm 4y ago

The biggest annoyance for me on MacOS is that apps that I need to leave open but don't have windows open still show up in the switcher. When I'm on my work laptop, I still have to tab through Finder, the VPN app, etc. he rare times I need to work on the Java part of our codebase, I use the ssh remote beta for Intellij, which seems to open something called "Gateway", which is totally reasonable except that it adds yet _another_ entry to the cmd-tab menu. At this point, almost half of my cmd-tab menu is stuff that doesn't even have windows open. Back when I used MacOS more I had used something that I had gotten from the App Store way back (I think it was called "Witcher" or something), but with all the management software that the company has running in the background, the system already lags a decent amount every now and then, so I don't really want to add any more stuff for the management softwware to take up CPU time scanning. (I recognize that last part isn't specific to MacOS, but I can't help but feel like a user friendly OS would have better options built in specifically for cases where customization might not otherwise be desirable).

klodolph 4y ago
I think a big part of this is just the fact that desktop is overall not a priority these days for anyone. The app developers could easily enough prevent their app from showing up in the switcher, and there are apps that do that—like Quicksilver, Display Menu, etc.
blacksmith_tb 4y ago
It's pretty easy to quit the Finder if you don't need to mess with files graphically [1]. Once you've set that you can also use cmd-q to do that when you're cmd-tabbing through apps (if something else re-opens it). 1: https://www.howtogeek.com/259378/how-to-quit-the-finder-in-os-x/ https://www.howtogeek.com/259378/how-to-quit-the-finder-in-o...

binarycrusader 4y ago

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 the Desktop graphical interface most like the Macintosh prior to that even. I'd posit that both Windows and Macintosh graphical user interface designs started around the same time effectively due to the market and depending on whether you were in the education or business sector, you could perceive the pervasiveness of each wildly differently. I personally believe the Macintosh designers' early choice to heavily lean on skeuomorphic designs and its popularity in the nascent Desktop computer publishing industry reinforced the architectural multi-tasking choices made early in its development.

yodon 4y ago
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)
- binarycrusader 4y ago
  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.

gms7777 4y ago

I was one of the mac users that made that comment -- my point wasn't that this application isn't useful, it was that the landing page doesn't even try to explain why its useful.

fnord123 4y ago

Floating toolbars were an interesting flourish to show off the capabilities of GUIs (Photoshop being the most famous application to take advantage of this). And with floating toolbars, the application switching model made sense. But when virtual desktops landed on the Mac, it was a ridiculous hassle to move an application to a new desktop because there's tonnes of windows to move around. Now various programmes that used to use floating toolbars have moved to use main windows that hold all the toolbars (Photoshop being the most famous application to have done this). With multiple monitors more prevalent now, the application switching model is definitely broken. Command-tab raises all windows for an application across all monitors. This is super annoying. I mean, even Gnome gets this wrong but at least there's a toggle to fix it. I hope Apple can come to terms with this and fix it some day.