Hacker News Reader

Comment by jb1991 | Hacker News Reader

jb1991

The article seems ignorant of native tools built right into macOS. For example, it claims macOS is missing:

> Missing native Alt+Tab and individual window switching (only does app switching)

This is simply false, and the whole list is by someone who just hasn't made an effort to learn how to use a new OS they are not familiar with. For example, I just use Command-tilda, two keys right next to each other, to switch between windows of the same app, and Command-Tab to switch between different apps altogether. Is this not what the author wants?

View on HN

When I first switched to osx many years ago, this was a pretty jarring change. I was used to alt+tab switching between all windows, and had muscle memory tied to that.

Today, however, I couldn't imagine going back. Having separate toggles for switching apps vs. switching app windows is so much faster and useful - once you get used to it. But it does take retraining muscle memory.

What I don't understand is the author of this article making statements like this that reveal they have not put in any effort to learn a whole new OS. Imagine if I switched to KDE and soon wrote an article bashing KDE because I just couldn't figure out how to do basic things. Some effort is necessary to see what an OS offers, and this author clearly hasn't done it.

macOS has no customizability, claiming that this makes it more "intuitive" and you don't need "effort to learn" it.

If you need to spend "effort to learn" anyway, you might as well just go with something like KDE, where on top of having learnt the environment, you can now also customize it.

> claiming that this makes it more "intuitive" and you don't need "effort to learn" it.

just out of curiosity opened: https://www.apple.com/macos/ventura/ . Not a word on intuitiveness and effortlessness.

The author wants a single key combo that cycles among all the open windows from all apps, because that's what he's used to. There's a terrific free macOS app called AltTab https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app that does it.

What keyboard combination do you use to switch between all windows of all apps in one single UI?

(Note: that keyboard combination should also make sense on ISO keyboards and be available without third-party apps)

There are a few other options for doing that -- the two that come to mind: if both hands are on the keyboard, the standard Command-Tab combined with the down arrow key allow you to cycle through both apps and windows of a single app. Better though, a simple three-finger swipe up on the trackpad show all windows as thumbnails for easily getting to the window you want from any app. I use the latter constantly, saves time if you have a lot of open windows as you don't have to cycle among them all to get the one you need.

Also by default Control+F4 will cycle through visible windows of all apps.

macOS has a lot of keyboard shortcuts, and you can add even more from both apps and Applescripts

By default that's Control+F4 (switches focus between all visible windows in all visible Spaces) and it "making sense on ISO keyboards" is irrelevant because (contrary to your claim in a different comment that macOS is not customisable) you can in fact change every keyboard shortcut that shows up in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts as well as remap your modifier keys in System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys.

IMHO this poster have put it well: https://old.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/yvxz2l/kde_beats_macos...

> It's a different way of thinking about desktop hierarchy. Physical screens, virtual desktops / fullscreen apps, applications, and windows are separately navigable items on macOS. On KDE it's essentially just windows, regardless of where they belong logically or physically.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com