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Comment by andybak | Hacker News Reader

Because of my weird comfort and focus habits I've forced myself to get used to small screens. I hate having more than one task visible at any one moment so all my apps are running full-screen anyway. I've got very used to the various short-cuts for switching apps. I use Windows and MacOS and avoid all the full-screen functionality in MacOS (never managed to really get my head round it). I've got a 13" Macbook Air (2015 - before they ruined them) and a 15" Windows Laptop (Gaming GPU so I couldn't dual boot the Mac)

My IDEs are all Jetbrains (PyCharm, Rider). A console is no issue. The biggest challenge is probably Unity but having good workspace presets for various tasks helps.

Another factor - I'm pushing 50 and my eyesight is getting worse so I want less going on at once so I can make stuff bigger...

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From one old git with failing eyesight to another, think about talking to your optician and investigating a pair of glasses optimised for the shorter distance. Life changing move if you spend any decent amount of time in front of a monitor. Good luck!

Does the difference in alt-tab behavior between Windows and MacOS (with alt-` too) slow you down at all? I might venture to guess no, since your workflow sounds like largely single-window-per-program.

Not OP but in a similar position. I find that since I don't use the desktop switching features on MacOS I dont have a problem with the alt tab situation. I only use one desktop and just alt tab for everything. Its just a minor annoyance on Windows when alt+` doesn't respond.

The worst part for me about switching back and forth between MacOS and Windows/Nix is the muscle memory around applekey+c/v vs ctrl+c/v. There isn't a way to remap keys to recreate that muscle memory on Windows/nix and keep the muscle memory for alt tab.

Surely Windows has a comparable window-switching behavior which could be mapped to alt-` with AutoHotKey or similar? I'm not familiar with Windows post-95, but I'd do this in a heartbeat, since the change app and window shortcuts are deep in my muscle memory after all these years.

I use about four different windowing workflows (macOS/Windows single/multi-monitor) regularly, and don't find switching between them to be a hassle.

I use hyperswitch (https://bahoom.com/hyperswitch) which emulates Windows alt-tab behaviour on MacOS. Not bulletproof but it mostly works.

I used to regularly switch between Windows and MacOS when I was in college and found that if I used the same keyboard I'd frequently go for the wrong keys (I didn't like the college keyboards so would bring one from home). Interestingly, using different keyboards for Windows and MacOS solved that problem.

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