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by diogotito 1026 days ago
I also wrote my AHK functions to have hotkeys to cycle through (or toggle) windows from an application! Here: https://github.com/diogotito/autohotkey-scripts/blob/desktop...

and here's where I declare most of my hotkeys: https://github.com/diogotito/autohotkey-scripts/blob/desktop...

It uses AHK's window groups. I only regret having written this in AHK v1, which was a bit of a pain in the neck. I intend rewrite them in AHK v2, which looks like a halfway step to ES6 with lambdas, closures and all. So many quirks gone! I tried it a bit and it felt more fun and productive.

As a simpler alternative (which I use for work), one can pin the 10 most used applications on the taskbar and do:

- Win+<N> to launch, toggle, or choose a window from the Nth application

- Ctrl+Win+<N> to launch, toggle or cycle through the windows from the Nth application

- Shift+Win+<N> to launch a new window

- Alt+Win+<N> to bring up the Jump List

Then you can use a simpler hotkey manager (like PowerToys' Keyboard Manager) to bind to the Ctrl+Win+<N> shortcuts.

> Plus a tweak: When launching, programs may open in the background because Windows attempts to prevent applications stealing focus when you are working in another program. I overcome this by focusing the tray before launching.

Aaah! That explains some things. That does happen to me sometimes and it's a bit annoying. I got used to pressing my hotkey again when I noticed the taskbar icon blinking green to bring up the new window, or just spamming WinActivate and hope for the best. Thanks!
1 comments
myfonj 1026 days ago
Yes, Win+<number> is also a gem that almost seems to be deliberately hidden, (like Win+T, Win+B). One thing that helps is to see actual numbers in the taskbar, what, to my knowledge, is currently possible in Windows 10 (only) with third-party app: https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-numberer . For startup

    start "" "C:\...\7+ Taskbar Numberer.exe" -v2 -hidewnd
will show same number for grouped windows so cycling will work.

Btw most tabbed interfaces have the same bindings for focusing first, second ... last tab (Ctrl+<number> in most browsers, Ctrl+9 for the last tab, usually).

I like to apply same "tab principles" to taskbar, so last thing missing here is to be able to "Ctrl+PgUp/PgDown" through windows in Taskbar order just like in sane browsers (with Win in place of Ctrl).

I attempted to do it with AHK but failed miserably, but luckily another third-party app, (7+ Taskbar Tweaker, from the same author as Numberer) can do that through advanced settings. Config in gist: https://gist.github.com/myfonj/62b4e0d393f4a97df5e9904df5e77...

(Sadly, none of those will probably ever work outside Windows 10 (?))

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