robata.app
This is a macOS app that allows you to see all your open windows on each monitor and select the one you want.
It also lets you view the current state of things like email or chat windows, terminal processes, and more.
You can use "cmd" and the key above the tab key for alt-tab like behaviour.
You can also toggle the UI by resting a finger on the corner of your trackpad.
I also wrote some dev details here:
I'm the author of AltTab (https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/), a popular window switcher for macOS, imitating Windows famous alt+tab shortcut. I know for a fact how hard it is to implement what you did. It looks very nice, well done!
I see you ran into the issue of not being able to detect windows from other Spaces. Apple introduced it in macOS 12.2. If you're curious, you can see the vast efforts we've deployed trying to find a workaround: https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos/issues/1324. I wish some retro-engineering genius would solve this. We haven't been lucky so far. Of course Apple could fix this all in an instant with a new API, but that's very unlikely to happen.
Thank you
I also really appreciate the partnership and open attitude your comment above demonstrates, and that to a potential‘competitor’.
Just open the API for the 3rd party developers to fix your mess!
Coincidentally, after 10 years, and 100 releases of 0.9, HammerSpoon just released 1.0 in August 2024:
Hammerspoon is a bridge between the operating system and a Lua scripting engine. What gives Hammerspoon its power is a set of extensions that expose specific pieces of system functionality, to the user.
You can write Lua code that interacts with macOS APIs for applications, windows, mouse pointers, filesystem objects, audio devices, batteries, screens, low-level keyboard/mouse events, clipboards, location services, wifi, and more.
The concept sells itself for those interested. Instead of just twitter, in 3 Windows in each of 4 Spaces, apps (or at least differing websites) with matched purposes, or themed background colors, should be used for the demo. Don't bury the lede -- more than halfway into the video introducing it.
1) show what it offers, 2) show how apple's native spaces falls short.
I think people can give spaces names, so showing that name might help with maintaining their workflows.
Time-cost costs users, costs revenue. Good luck!
Could be a good feature: have the reminder titles even if it's only in-app.
It's obvious to the viewer that these are windows being shown, in my opinion - you can start right off with the invoke interaction and go into the demo.
So this app (by default) does exactly what I dislike about that behavior, mixing desktops. Which makes sense, as people have different preferences.
However, is there a setting that allows it to show only windows of the current desktop? (Essentially mimicking Mission Control) And, if so, is there also a setting that allows you to display ONLY the windows of the current application?
If you allow those 2 settings (and better with different shortcuts) you'll essentially meet the needs and preference of most users!
Linux is only free if you don't value your time.
Press CTRL+up to see all windows on your current space/desktop. Press CTRL+down to see all of windows of the current application. Press CMD+left/right to cycle through all windows of the current application.
Yesterday I had to open up a huge ass PC case and disconnect GPU to be able to physically remove 2nd SSD drive, so that Windows 11 could perform a clean install. Simple setup on a modern PC. That's the only solution that worked - found it on reddit as the most upvoted answer. Never had to remove any hardware in order to install Linux. Ofc it's just a stupid anecdote but that's all the quote you posted is based on.
That said, Sequoia includes native window snapping and a password manager. Apple is slowly addressing the "problem."
More seriously I don't understand what the problem is here. Is the problem That some functionality or another wasn't built into the OS? Most things "linux" does aren't built into "linux" or even "gnu/linux", they're a distribution composed of both some combination of linux kernel, base tooling apps and then improved UX apps on top of that, all of which will vary greatly in what functionality they provide out of the box. What makes this particular app and functionality a critical piece that an OS should provide?
Is the problem that the developer is charging money for their work? Why is that a problem? For the life of me I don't understand why software developers seem so hellbent on devaluing their own work. Why is it outrageous to spend $30 for something like this if the built in window management functionality doesn't suit you? If you're broke, or live somewhere where $30 USD is a lot of money, sure you might be annoyed that you either need to code this up yourself, or dig for someone offering a free replacement, but if you're not either of those, $30 is a hair over dinner for 2 at a fast food restaurant these days. It's (likely less than) a tank of gas. It is 1 hour of work at the median US developer salary of $79k / year. If you could code something like this up in less than an hour, maybe it's not worth your time, but if you can't, it's a screaming deal if this is something you need.
Software is worth something, human labor goes into it, and those humans need to eat and pay their bills. Maybe big corporations with deep pockets and huge recurring revenue streams have warped our views a bit with the amount of software they can give away for free. Certainly the amount of benefit we have all received from countless people volunteering their time away at various open source project has spoiled us some. But those people can only volunteer their time because somewhere, someone else is paying them for other parts of their time. If we the developers constantly treat our labor as if it has no value, why would we expect anyone else to treat it otherwise?
We are so crazy as devs. We’re outraged when someone wants few dollars for their app. Especially when it’s a one guy trying to make a living from building small apps like this. In the meantime we dream about opening a 1 person software shop selling small apps and getting out of corp work.
This is total madness.
Quite the opposite. We've paid with our attention, patience, freedom and time for far too long to get fooled into the "paid software" shtick again. You can't sell me a window manager with a guarantee that Apple won't brick it in a future update or even with a promise it will get improved. I can't upgrade or extend it myself if the app does get depreciated, and I can't complain to Apple since normally they're the ones choosing what to depreciate. Best case scenario I get 2-4 years out of my purchase before it's depreciated, assuming I don't get bored with it or find a better solution.
Sometimes I wonder how much software on MacOS would be free if notarization didn't cost money. Apple has really damned their software ecosystem by forcing every developer to recoup their annual fee whether they're a multi-billion dollar corporation, an indie in Ghana with a used Macbook, or a Free Software advocate simply trying to get Mac users their packages.
I still don't understand the problem. Lets assume you got exactly 1 year out of this app before it irreparably broke and the author didn't update it. $30 / 365 days works out to a whopping 8¢ per day. If you need or want this functionality, is it worth 8¢ per day to you to not have to code it yourself even if only for a year?
> Sometimes I wonder how much software on MacOS would be free if notarization didn't cost money.
MacOS has always had a very strong small developer scene that lived on small apps selling at small prices, long before notarization was a thing. One of the most famous small mac developers Ambrosia Software went for decades on shareware models for most of their software, including little utilities like this. Rogue Amoeba continues that trend. NetNewswire was a shareware RSS app before it went free. Likewise the Omni Group was charging for MacOS software long before this as well.
And again, why is this a problem? Why do you want to treat software like the work that went into that software has no value? Why shouldn't people who do work you find useful get paid for their work?
100% in agreement!
Additionally, almost everything this $29 app does are things that macOS has provided out of the box for close to 20 years already, before Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon and various compositors were inspired. You can already set up hotkeys to show all windows on the current space you're viewing, and to cycle through all windows of the currently focused application, and more.
Some of the complaints of the app's author are also not accurate:
> "Expose" does not work well when you have more than 3 windows on a space.
I have "Hot Corners" set to "Mission Control" and "Application Windows", and when I fling the mouse to that corner, I can see 6 windows of the browser just fine right now, and I have grouping enabled in Mission Control, showing 8 windows. If I scroll up on a window group, the windows spread out.
All in all, it's not that bad out of the box as the author makes it out to be, and definitely not bad enough to make me want to suffer all the other jank of Linux or Windows :)