Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aardwolf | Hacker News Reader

Macs don't even support alt+tab to tab between different windows as a stack correctly, this can never be superior.

NOTE: I don't use windows but linux, with desktops that are windows-like.

I think that's a matter of one's workflow and what they're used to. On Windows and winlike desktops, the lack of logical grouping of windows by application (outside of maybe combining taskbar buttons) drives me crazy, and I find that alt-tab switching windows instead of apps becomes unusable past ~5 windows open.

I’ve used Mac’s at my job for about 10 years + a few years of personal use before that. I’ve had ample time to get used to the Mac workflow.

macOS’s approach only works nicely if you expect to have one simultaneous task per app OR you don’t expect to switch between apps. Once you have multiple simultaneous tasks in multiple apps, it becomes really cumbersome to use command tab. My job tends to involve exactly the pattern of window switching that macOS isn’t made for.

I've been using two monitors for a long time at this point, which might be part of why the macOS workflow works for me. I make heavy usage of virtual desktops, with "primary" apps going on desktops on the main monitor and secondary/auxiliary apps going on the secondary monitor. With this I can mix and match entire sets of windows very quickly and efficiently and very rarely manually manage windows.

In my case, to get alt+tab to work correctly on Mac, there is a program called AltTab, it is amazing and lets us achieve Windows-like alt-tab behavior

"Work correctly" is strong. They're different philosophies, and not everyone agrees that window-oriented switching is better than application-oriented.

Your sibling comment prefers macOS's behaviour, and so do I. It took me a while to get used to it, but now I find Windows annoying when I have to use it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com