3 ms·

My favorite is how, if you have multiple windows of the same app visible, when you cmd-tab to that app, it moves all of the windows to the top of the stack. So

My favorite is how, if you have multiple windows of the same app visible, when you cmd-tab to that app, it moves all of the windows to the top of the stack. So if you want to switch between windows of two different apps, you better hide the ones you don't use.

squeaky-clean 3y ago
For me it's almost the opposite. I can't cmd-tab between different windows of the same app. I can use cmd+~ to switch between windows of the same app, but I always forget that and end up cmd+tab'ing though all my apps trying to find where my second Chrome window is.
- dfex 3y ago
  How the hell have I never come across Cmd ~ before?!! Thank you so much!!!
- zogrodea 3y ago
  That cmd-tab behaviour sounds similar to GNOME (haven't tried other desktop environments) on Linux. There, you can use alt-tab to cycle through different types of applications but if you want to cycle through different instances of the same application, you have to use alt-` or super-` to do that. It takes some getting used to in all honesty and I don't know if I like it.
somat 3y ago
My favorite "weird" thing common in X11 window managers is how they can separate the focus and the raising operations. On windows(and I presume mac) these operations are tightly linked. Why would you want to separate them you might ask? It turns out to be really useful to look at the window on the top and be able to type/control the obscured window underneath. On the one hand X11 sort of sucked with it's inconsistent window handling mechanisms. On the other hand because there was no central policy some very good novel productivity advancements were made in X11 space. select/single click paste, focus follows mouse, don't raise on focus. tiling window managers.
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  It won't let you type, but you can interact with most inactive windows on macOS by holding down Command and left/right clicking. Very useful for selecting text in an inactive window and copying it without first bringing the window forward.
- technofiend 3y ago
  There's probably a way to force windows and macos to stop this, but I also miss that in X, default window manager behavior didn't allow a new window to forcibly yank focus. I'll chose to place and type in that new window on my schedule, thank you very much.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  IIRC, it's been possible for a long time to just scroll an inactive window on macOS, without it gaining focus. I was happy to learn that Windows also got that somewhat recently. Having an IDE up front and checking on docs or similar in a background browser with part of the website obscured is something I missed since I moved to Linux and a tiling window manager. Now I have to waste screen space showing the menu or other useless junk on the sides of the actual text. I can sometimes zoom in and scroll just right, but others the site insists on showing me all three columns at the same time. I also liked the macOS approach of not having the first click in a background window fire an action. Now I always have to watch where I click if I want to switch windows with the mouse. I think KDE might have a setting to work like this, though.
  - somat 3y ago
    I use the tiling WM spectrwm. It lets me pull windows out of tiling mode and into window mode. I think a common operation on most tiling window managers. Most of the time I don't want overlapping windows(thus the tiling WM) but every once in a while I do, so the best of both worlds. It is a bit obscure but I quite like spectrwm, it fills this sweet spot where it is much simpler than I3 but more feature complete than DWM. https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm
    - 3y ago

squeaky-clean 3y ago

For me it's almost the opposite. I can't cmd-tab between different windows of the same app. I can use cmd+~ to switch between windows of the same app, but I always forget that and end up cmd+tab'ing though all my apps trying to find where my second Chrome window is.

dfex 3y ago
How the hell have I never come across Cmd ~ before?!! Thank you so much!!!
zogrodea 3y ago
That cmd-tab behaviour sounds similar to GNOME (haven't tried other desktop environments) on Linux. There, you can use alt-tab to cycle through different types of applications but if you want to cycle through different instances of the same application, you have to use alt-` or super-` to do that. It takes some getting used to in all honesty and I don't know if I like it.

somat 3y ago

My favorite "weird" thing common in X11 window managers is how they can separate the focus and the raising operations. On windows(and I presume mac) these operations are tightly linked. Why would you want to separate them you might ask? It turns out to be really useful to look at the window on the top and be able to type/control the obscured window underneath. On the one hand X11 sort of sucked with it's inconsistent window handling mechanisms. On the other hand because there was no central policy some very good novel productivity advancements were made in X11 space. select/single click paste, focus follows mouse, don't raise on focus. tiling window managers.

kitsunesoba 3y ago
It won't let you type, but you can interact with most inactive windows on macOS by holding down Command and left/right clicking. Very useful for selecting text in an inactive window and copying it without first bringing the window forward.
technofiend 3y ago
There's probably a way to force windows and macos to stop this, but I also miss that in X, default window manager behavior didn't allow a new window to forcibly yank focus. I'll chose to place and type in that new window on my schedule, thank you very much.
vladvasiliu 3y ago
IIRC, it's been possible for a long time to just scroll an inactive window on macOS, without it gaining focus. I was happy to learn that Windows also got that somewhat recently. Having an IDE up front and checking on docs or similar in a background browser with part of the website obscured is something I missed since I moved to Linux and a tiling window manager. Now I have to waste screen space showing the menu or other useless junk on the sides of the actual text. I can sometimes zoom in and scroll just right, but others the site insists on showing me all three columns at the same time. I also liked the macOS approach of not having the first click in a background window fire an action. Now I always have to watch where I click if I want to switch windows with the mouse. I think KDE might have a setting to work like this, though.
- somat 3y ago
  I use the tiling WM spectrwm. It lets me pull windows out of tiling mode and into window mode. I think a common operation on most tiling window managers. Most of the time I don't want overlapping windows(thus the tiling WM) but every once in a while I do, so the best of both worlds. It is a bit obscure but I quite like spectrwm, it fills this sweet spot where it is much simpler than I3 but more feature complete than DWM. https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm
  - 3y ago