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Comment by bazzargh | Hacker News Reader

I find the split between Cmd-backtick (cycle windows of an application) and Cmd-tab (cycle front window of all applications...which isn't all windows) super annoying, there is an app for that:

https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/

Alt-tab, it makes alt-tab cycle all open windows and shows you previews. So much better.

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Oh wow this is great! It's been years since I switched to Mac from Windows, but I really can't get used to this even now. The split seems so illogical and in almost all cases I need exactly what alt+tab is on Windows.

This looks great, but just discovering the Cmd-backtick was itself a literal out loud "what the----" moment for me.

Maybe I should RTFM?

But I looked at the manual here[], which led me to system preferences > keyboard > shortcuts, and I do not see this shortcut listed there!

What the heck! How do I learn how to use my computer so that I don't randomly learn things I need from web forums?

[]https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-keyboard-shortc...

If anyone is just learning about cmd-backtick, you also need to add cmd-shift-backtick to your muscle memory.

Just like cmd-shift-tab, it’ll cycle “backwards”, but with windows I find it useful much more often than apps, since flipping between two windows out of N is pretty common for me.

Thanks, at least that one is intuitive after learning cmd-backtick.

Speaking of that annoying split, I have a base 2020 Intel MacBook Air and command-tab takes 200 ms to display, making it utterly unpleasant. Mind-blowing for a €1200 computer.

Are all Intel MacBook Airs affected by this? Only those with baseline processors?

Seems to me the intention is that if you quickly press command-tab to switch back to your previous window, you don't get the window popping up in front of that window you've brought to the front.

This is nice, as most of the time I'm command tabbing between two windows, so I quickly press it and no window pops up on my screen. If I need to press command-tab more than once, it appears and I'm able to select the window I'd like. Seems like decent UX to me

I don’t think that’s it, no one told me about that when I complained about that delay on the Mac Power Users forums, and I can’t find anything about it (such as removing that delay) online right now.

Which Mac(s) are you experiencing that on, and since which OS version?

I'm experience what you described with a 200ms lag, and didn't notice it until you bring it up. On a 2020 Intel mac. After reflection, for the way I'm using cmd-tab 90% of the tab I prefer this slight delay as it doesn't block the screen when i'm switching between my browser/code editor, and when I need to press cmd-tab more than once, it's been 200ms and I'm able to press tab until I reach my desired app and I don't really notice that there was a delay

GNOME does this too. Their reasoning was exactly what your parent commenter said. I can't find a link now. Not that it's helpful to you, but there is a GNOME extension that does away with the 200ms delay.

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