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Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

I find this funny, in that I struggle with Mac all the time. The worst grievance lately is that I don't know how to just pop back and forth between three windows. Something about the way command tab works just kills my ability to reason about what the window stack currently is.

And, for the life of me, I never get copy paste from a terminal to work like I want it to.

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Headed in the other direction (Linux at home to Mac at work) for years now, I can't understand what the fuss is about with Mac keyboard shortcuts. In my experience, I don't find them consistent, useful, or pleasant to use. You hit the nail on the head with alt-tab.

alt-tab is universal. Hell, alt-tab works on Android if you hook up a keyboard to it. Mac is the only thing where alt-tab falls on its face. Even if you remind yourself that you're on Mac and use cmd-tab, it cycles between apps, not windows. You need to use cmd-` for that. I often find myself in a cycle of using 3 windows across 2 apps and it drives me bonkers.

> Mac is the only thing where alt-tab falls on its face. Even if you remind yourself that you're on Mac and use cmd-tab...

But alt on a Windows keyboard layout and and command on a Mac keyboard layout are the same key location, so I don't understand how you can be confused by this... maybe stop looking at the keyboard?

The bigger issue is that command-tab switches between apps, not windows, and command-` switches between windows in the same app, and neither work across spaces.

I ended up installing https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ which adds a keystroke that will cycle through all windows in all apps on all spaces. It's a huge improvement.

Command left/right arrow, for example, switches between terminal windows in different spaces, and to terminal windows within the same space as well. Press the shift key as well to shift between tabs. (At least on my MacBook Pro's Japanese keyboard.) I don't recall have modded this behavior.

That's definitely better than command-`, thanks.

It's still not as nice as alt-tab, though. Frequently most of my windows are a mix of terminals and browser windows. I may be using several web apps and several command-line tools. Having to think about whether the application I want to switch to happens to be using the same "shell" application is not helpful.

I just want to be able to use one key to cycle through all windows in all spaces, and which lets me easily flip between the two most recent windows. Windows (and virtually every Linux DE) has had this for decades. It amazes me that macOS only recently got this, and only because of a third-party tool.

Yes, Alt-Tab is a HUGE improvement over Apple's implementation because it not only restores minimized apps as it should, but can also create a window for a running app that lacks one (with Finder being a critical example).

Hold option as you release cmd and it will behave as you describe (opening the default window for an app with no open windows, restoring minimized apps… it’s equivalent to clicking the Dock icon for that app)

Mac differs between switching windows and applications.

So if you work in an IDE, keep reading docs in one Firefox window and test your application in another Firefox window then in KDE or XFCE or another sane windowing system[1] - even Windows - you just use alt - tab.

On Mac you have to stop an think: Should I switch to another browser Window? Ok, that is CMD - backtick. Switch to or from IDE? That is CMD - tab.

Press the wrong combination? Now Cyberduck has entered the mix.

[1]:I was about to write Windows or Linux but starting with Unity and now also Gnome has copied this to be bug comptible with Mac

> but starting with Unity and now also Gnome has copied this to be bug comptible with Mac

This is simultaneously one of the saddest and funniest things I've read about GNOME in a while (which has a surprisingly high bar on both accounts)

Here's how to fix it in Gnome :)

Settings -> Keyboard -> View and Customize Shortcuts -> Switch windows -> Alt + Tab

And for completeness, on the command line

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-windows "['<Alt>Tab']"

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-windows-backward "['<Shift><Alt>Tab']"

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-applications "[]"

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-applications-backward "[]"

Personally i like how Window Maker does it: you can switch between all windows like in Windows, KDE, XFCE and most other floating window managers (by default on Alt+Tab) but you can also switch only between the windows of the current group (usually all windows of an application belong to the same group) or quickly toggle between the last two workspaces (what WM calls virtual desktops). The last two aren't bound to keys by default, but personally i have those set to Alt+` (sort of taken from when i used a Mac for a while) and Win+Tab respectively.

The only annoyance is that it doesn't seem to distinguish between window types so, e.g., in GIMP in multiple window mode it also cycles between utility windows like the toolbar, options, etc instead of only the image windows - though some applications do not even bother providing window hints about their window types.

Also the whole paradigm breaks down on macos if you have multiple desktops. Suppose you have one terminal open on desktop 1, and a browser and terminal on desktop 2. From the browser, if you cmd tab to switch to terminal, it will never go to the terminal on desktop 1, even if that was the last window in focus.

If you use the same keyboard for both, by default they end up in different places. The Mac treats the Windows key as the Command key, and the Alt key as the Option key.

(You can tweak this, if you need to, in System Preferences, Keyboard section, Keyboard tab, Modifier Keys... button.)

By default GNOME has the same distinction between apps and windows and works with the backtick, too. I find it comfortable enough once you get used to it. You can do 2 different things with almost the same command (in terms of fingers position). It's only manageable with a US keyboard layout though, I give you that.

I'm not sure that the grievance is necessarily that Mac shortcut keys are better, but it's that what the OP is used to. It's a pain to switch.

I'm an Emacs man. Many Emacs shortcut keys suck, but it's what I'm used to, so it's what I want.

I use hyperswitch: https://bahoom.com/hyperswitch

Unrelated, I also use Hyperdock, from the same developer, to get the dock into the 21st century.

Personally I prefer alt-tab (cmd+tab) on macOS is prefer over other operating systems. It makes it easier to work with multi window applications like browser, spreadsheets etc. If you never minimize windows, only hide them it makes life easier.

I made a FOSS alt-tab drop-in for macOS: https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/

I also list alternatives on that page. That may inspire you

Thanks for making this, I installed it the other day after switching to a Mac for work and being really frustrated with the default alt+tab behaviour.

I hate the mac my work makes me use, but this makes it a bit less painful. Thank you.

Exactly what I was looking for, thx!

I struggled with Mac on my M1 Air for about six months then donated it to my partner and returned to Fedora on an XPS 13. Muscle memory was bad enough but the feeling of being watched was worse.

Little Snitch is pretty good to stop unwanted network connections on OSX

> I never get copy paste

You can just use middle click everywhere, no? One checkbox in the clipboard manager and done.

Btw ctrl+shift+v to paste is often much more useful than ctrl+v, e.g. for emails, and is the exact same in the terminal.

You might like to try rcmd? No affiliation, and I’ll add that it didn’t work on my external MS Natural keyboard, so I stopped using it. But I like the idea. Perhaps it would work for you?

https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd/

Window switching on mac has always driven me mad. I cut my teeth on windows so that is probably why.

Why can’t one switch between windows of the same application on MacOS with a modifier+tab combination?

It's Cmd-`, which is close enough to tab that I find it very handy

Make your desired windows fullscreen, then swipe side to side on the trackpad (3 or 4 fingers) to switch between them almost instantly. One of the best features of MacOS, IMO.

Really nice, unless you have a big-ish screen. It is jarring to have the entire screen slide back and forth, and of course a bad use of screen real estate.

If almost instantly means 700 milliseconds on a regular monitor and 950 milliseconds on a 21:9 monitor, sure, instantly.

Gnome does the same. Slow, jarring and pretty useless for mouse+keyboard or displays larger than laptop sized.

"Just swish your virtual desktops around" seems extremely convoluted when I just want to switch between different windows.

But it doesn't work so well if you prefer to use a conventional external mouse.

I was stuck using the shortcuts (ctrl + left or right arrow key), or clicking the Mission Control button I had to pin to the Dock.

>And, for the life of me, I never get copy paste from a terminal to work like I want it to.

Doesn't command+c/command+v work?

I think most of my trouble is highlighting the part I want copied. Can't remember, and I now do most of my work in emacs. Such that I am now used to all of my editor buffer being treated the same.

Fair enough.

I use emacs as well, but apple touchpads are good enough that frankly it's probably faster for me to just highlight text in iterm2 with the mouse (which is what I do). In emacs I use the standard C-spc shortcuts, though.

None of my work is particularly terminal-heavy, thankfully.

I suspect that I probably just notice the times in the terminal that it is hard for me. I also use a rollermouse. Which, I love, but I have found I am nowhere near as accurate with it as I probably should be.

Apple messed up its Alt-Tab implementation with one simple blunder: It doesn't restore minimized apps. I tab TO an application, but when I'm done I minimize it out of the way. But then you can't Command-Tab back to it, because Apple keeps it uselessly minimized.

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