[fizlebit]

Any chance of a window manager that lets you alt tab between windows instead of between applications. So Alt-tab-tab-tab takes you 3 windows ago, not 3 applications ago, or worse 1 application ago and 2 unrelated windows of that application?

Man I really mis application menus being at the top of windows and being able to layer different windows from different applications in any order that I wish. VNC screen connections just make it into an even worse jumble.

[notpushkin]

Looks like AltTab is what you're looking for. https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ (free, GPLv3)

[Hamuko]

There's at least Witch and Contexts.

https://manytricks.com/witch/

https://contexts.co/

[emmanueloga_]

I use both Witch and Rectangle. It's surprising how much you need third-party utilities to make macOS usable. The default window management is almost unusable without them. I also dislike the "one-button" philosophy and all the hidden behaviors, like menu items that only appear when you press the Option key. Sigh.

[DavideNL]

Having tried a lot of them, Contexts is one of the best Window Switcher replacements i could find, have been using it (and Rectangle) for a long time;

It’s fast, great quick search abilities, including `fn + [key]` to quick switch (acronym), etc.

And it doesn't constantly get updates, it just does its thing and does it well.

[swah]

I really wish for some workflow that let me not use cmd-tab that much - that gets painful (cmd-tab, cmd-c, cmd-v, cmd-t, cmd-w... all day long)

[whatever1]

I've got an annoying bug that made Contexts unusable to me. After 10-15 minutes it steals focus from the active window and then the OS will try to bring up the previous app, which means it might even switch desktops to do so.

If I quit contexts bug goes away for some time, but it returns after a while :(

Sent an email to the creator, but given the update cadence I am not holding my breath for a fix this decade.

[leonseled]

IIRC it has something to do with full screen apps/use of spaces. Just don’t use either and the bug shouldn’t occur. Annoying but I love the app too much that it was worth giving those up.

If it annoys you enough see if rcmd works for you. It’s the next best alternative Ive found so far. The Dev is great too I use a bunch of his other apps (Lunar and Clop).

[DavideNL]

I’ve also had that bug happen, not sure why it isn’t happening anymore though…

I think it happened when not rebooting my Macbook for a long time and only with fullscreen windows, and i’d simply restart Contexts. But yea it was annoying indeed. Note that it might also be one of the many Apple macOS (api) bugs…

[whatever1]

Most likely apple broke the behavior of an API. Such an annoying platform to maintain software for.

[philsnow]

You can DIY and get any level of customization/integration you want

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40713603

[aloer]

macOS has built in shortcuts to switch through windows of the currently focused application. I have it reconfigured to alt+tab

This is not exactly what you are looking for but I personally like it more this way. So for example, I can switch between editor and browser via cmd tab but then I can cycle through browser windows via alt tab. These are two separate actions and it prevents me from having to cycle too much (compared to a solution that cycles through all windows of all applications)

Also helps to build temporal and spatial muscle memory. The first browser window is the main one, the next one was the one before that and so on

[janci]

Wait, what? Are all windows of an application positioned in the same layer on macOS?

[zarzavat]

No, all window of an application are not positioned on the same layer.

But when you tab into an application, all of its windows are brought to the front.

If you want to bring one specific window to the front you are supposed to use Exposé, but some power users don’t like this because it uses the mouse instead of the keyboard.

[notpushkin]

Yeah, when you press ⌘ Tab, you are switching between applications (and ⌘ ` switches between windows of the applications). Super weird IMO.

[jwells89]

Conversely, I find the lack of per-app grouping on Windows (outside of the taskbar) irritating, particularly on multi-monitor setups. I understand that it’s not everybody’s preference but it should at least be an option.

[yodon]

The behavior dates back to the original Mac, which could only context switch between applications via a hack that simulated multitasking (the days of 128K memory, etc.)

[lproven]

Not really, no.

Having >1 app at once only appeared with Multifinder, which appeared in System 5.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MultiFinder

So that came along in 1987 alongside Macs with 1MB RAM. It built upon Switcher, which appeared with the 512kB Mac in 1985.

The reason all OSes now have file open/save dialog boxes is that the original Mac didn't have enough RAM to show a finder window alongside an app, so apps had to provide their own.

[yodon]

I was referring to Switcher, from 1985, which I believe ran on 128k Mac's. I was referring to Switcher because it set the user experience patterns and expectations for how app switching should work that led to multifinder and OSX per-app switching patterns.

The Mac OS has always been an app-first experience (leading users to tend to talk about the name of the app they are using) where Windows has always been a document-first experience (leading users to talk about the file type of the document they are opening). Apps and Documents are obviously both important, so this is a big of a ying and yang thing where it's clearly two sides of the same coin, and yet they lead to a bias to talking about, for example, keynote, which is an app, and to talking about PowerPoint decks, which are documents (again, a bias, not a totality).

[lproven]

Thanks for the reply.

> I was referring to Switcher, from 1985

Ah, OK. You didn't _say_ that, though.

> which I believe ran on 128k Mac's.

I don't think so, no.

The story of its development is here:

https://www.folklore.org/Switcher.html

It mentions needing the RAM, but not what system version. MultiFinder came in with System 5:

https://www.folklore.org/Switcher.html

... so, before that.

I would guess System 2, which was contemporaneous, but I don't know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Mac_OS#Release_history

> I was referring to Switcher because it set the user experience patterns and expectations for how app switching should work that led to multifinder and OSX per-app switching patterns.

Huh. OK. I had never considered that before.

[jeffhuys]

Super handy! I regularly work on multiple projects at once. Have 3 phpstorm windows open, but working on project A, I can just CMD+Tab because project A is focussed. I switch between browser, terminal, editor, etc. Then, when switching to project B, I do CMD+` once in every app, and I’m done.

To me, this makes windows feel like a maze and macos feel natural.

[eitland]

This is a nice feature. There is nothing wrong with letting people switch between windows from the same application.

There is still no reason why you cannot have both CMD-Tab switching between any window and also an option to switch between windows from the same app?