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I prefer the Mac way. I'm stuck using Windows at work, and it's annoying to have to Alt-Tab through the last five Excel (or mail or whatever) documents to get b
by oddthink 15y ago
I prefer the Mac way. I'm stuck using Windows at work, and it's annoying to have to Alt-Tab through the last five Excel (or mail or whatever) documents to get back to the editor. I much prefer to be able to go the application I want, then find the document within it that I'm looking for.
Then again, I'm not doing web development, so I'm not trying to cycle between my editor and one particular browser window.
I don't think it's a power-user vs. beginner issue; it's more of a workflow style issue.
- divtxt 15y agoIt's not really personal preference if that's what you mean. It's about your work splits across apps & windows. For example, chat is mostly fine. I'm either switching between multiple chat windows or mentally switching from chat to another task in which case I have no problem switching out of the whole chat app. The same setup goes wrong when one chat window is for work, and I'm going back and forth with another non-chat work window.
- oddthink 15y agoNo, I'm not saying it's preference. I think we agree, actually. By "workflow", I meant the way your particular work tends to split across apps and windows. For me, it's a better default to switch entire applications than windows. There are edge cases, sure, like the chat one you mention, or different browser windows, but I'd rather just switch from Excel to IE to Outlook than have to tab through my history of open documents and browser tabs (curse you IE) to get back to my Outlook window. It sounds like for you, it's the opposite: the better default would be to switch windows, not apps. The question then is which is the most common pattern, but I don't know of any actual research on this. You can't generalize from personal experience, plural of anecdote and all that.