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Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

…why?

Neither the readme nor the official website seem to explain why I would want this. I guess it’s supposed to be self evident, but it’s not to me.

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Because natively with macos you need to use both: 1. cmd+tab to the app you want 2. once on that app you need to use cmd+~ to navigate through the windows of that app.

Alt-Tab allows you to bypass all this and just cmd+tab through all windows of all apps. I find it incredibly useful.

The two main reasons I like it so far:

1. I can now Cmd+Tab through all windows, rather than through all apps. (For example, say I have Mail and 4 Safari windows open, the standard macOS Cmd+Tab will just let me flip between Mail and Safari at a general level, but AltTab will let me switch through all of those 5 windows.)

2. Screenshots of all windows as you're switching.

That’s what command-backtick is for. It cycles between windows in a single application.

For #2 I’d just use Expose.

But thanks for answering my question. It’s been a long time since I used windows so I didn’t know (or forgot) there was a difference.

You're welcome. I do use Cmd+` when I'm already in the app that I want to switch between the windows of, but I like the ability with this app where I can switch straight to the window I want no matter what app I'm currently in.

I've also tried (and paid for) Witch, but it can often be slow and the screenshot feature isn't great.

The problem with expose is it is slow. You need to visually search for the right window, then select it.

(Unlike the equivalent in KDE that lets you filter by window title by just typing)

FYI, from cmd+tab you can use the down arrow to get to the window level of the application (then arrow keys to navigate through the windows).

If you ever tried to switch between windows on macOS, you'd know why ;)

Cmd-Tab on macOS doesn't switch between windows, but between applications. And to switch between windows in the same application, there's a separate shortcut. It's a real mess.

This may be a “it’s different from what you’re used to” rather than a “real mess”. Personally I much prefer using different shortcuts to do different things, but that’s likely because I’m engrained in the Mac-style habits instead of the windows ones —- to me, just based on your description, it sounds much worse to have a big pile of unsorted windows to step through instead of being able to jump to the application I want and then step through a much smaller list of windows within it like I can on my Mac.

I prefer that I have control over whether I’m switching between apps or between windows. Throwing them all into the same search space is also “a real mess”.

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