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Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

Whenever I see tools like this for Mac I can't help but wonder if I am seriously missing something.

Unlike when I use Windows, I just don't use command (alt) tab on Mac. I rely almost entirely on gestures on my trackpad (three fingers swipe up to see all my windows that are not minimized).

With the added benefit of that allowing me to drag those windows to other screens/desktops right from that UI.

Is there some power user advantage I am missing out on here or is this sort of making Mac work more like Windows? On Windows I use alt tab all the time just because... I find its windows management sucks compared to Mac.

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No, the joke is on us MacOS users who insist on its terrible Alt-Tab behavior instead of leaning into the gesture support.

But I do believe the gesture support has fundamental limitations:

1) you have to take your keys off the home row to render gestures. Not good!

2) gesture window switching / Exposé breaks down when you have too many windows open: the thumbnails become unrecognizably small.

3) to solve the above problem, perhaps you suggest using spaces. Well, MacOS's spaces support is also frustrating. It's impossible to turn off the animation and time lag switching between spaces! Sure, it's only a half-second, but a half-second repeated hundreds of times adds up. And spaces's interaction with alt-tab is totally broken: if you're using a given app (say Chrome), switch to another space where Chrome is also open, and then try to alt-tab back, it doesn't take you back to the last window you had open. Sad!

As far as those limitations go.

1) That would also be true if you are switching to nearly any GUI based app that you need the mouse except for maybe if you are switching to a text editor but I doubt every time you switch apps you are immediately typing something, so not really sure I see the problem there.

2) True, maybe I just don't tend to have a ton of windows open at the same time.

3) I can't really speak on how it behaves with alt-tab however with the track pad it is as fast as you swipe and tied to that swipe. I can slow it down or speed it up.

I love the mac alt-tab behavior, you just move your finger up one key to switch between windows in the current app grouping them nicely unlike Windows where they're all a big mishmash.

Hah, my perspective is the exact opposite!

On Windows, there is a nicely and predictably maintained Z-order, whereas MacOS insists that if I want to switch focus, surely I want all the windows that the other app has to offer, which feels like a big "mishmash" to me.

I agree as well, which is why I've used HyperSwitch for many years. It restore most of the goodness of the Windows focus switching experience with a defined keybinding.

> MacOS insists that if I want to switch focus, surely I want all the windows that the other app has to offer, which feels like a but mishmash to me.

This had not been the case. Command tabbing would bring forward only the last active window. It was very handy to switch back and forth between text editor and browser that way. But then, they decided command tab should bring forward all windows, which ruined usability for me. Now I use BetterTouchTool [0] to directly switch to an app. Doing so brings forward only the last active window.

[0] https://folivora.ai

Pleas elaborate on how exactly you do this using BTT. I have used it a little bit, but haven’t gone beyond mapping one or two things.

My pleasure. Even though BTT is conceptually very simple (input method triggers trigger actions), implementation is very detailed.

First, add a new keyboard shortcut trigger for “All Apps”. Choose a key combo that you prefer. I'm using a programmable keyboard that has a dedicated key corresponding to key combo CTRL+SHIFT+OPTION+CMD (a.k.a. super), which doesn't collide with system key combos. You are free to choose anything that suits you. For instance, to switch to Safari, I hit SUPER+S.

For corresponding action, choose “Launch Application / Open File / ...” and choose Safari from the box below. When Safari is already running, this action will switch focus to Safari's most recently focused window and will not bring other windows of it to foreground.

That's all. Set up other key combos for other applications as well. I have many set up. SUPER+T is for Terminal, SUPER+E is for Emacs. Switching between most recent windows of these apps should now be very easy and fast.

My issue with this behaviour is that I often don't want my windows to be grouped by app. I want to be able to group windows by project, and I may want to have multiple projects in the same set of apps. Workspaces (virtual desktops) ought to be perfect for this, but there is no way to get alt-tab like switching between windows in a desktop on macOS.

It also breaks down when you have a full screen window and a normal window. It's so jarring.

One more reason to avoid the dead end of full screen windows.

We’ll that’s the thing. Windows is based around windows and macOS is based around applications. I get that you want to use macOS like you use windows but that is the historical usage of these UI.

Except when windows behave like apps and you close a window and it closes the app. Or it’s a single window app but closing the window does not close the app. Or when you full screen a window and now everything is inconsistent. Or when you use Mission Control and now the switching paradigm is based on Windows and not Apps.

Even Apple’s own applications break the “it’s an app and not a window” paradigm in many instances. Without trying, there’s no way to tell if clicking on the close button will quit the app or just close that window even for apps that only use a single window.

That made sense in days gone by when things like photoshop's tool palettes were in separate windows. It makes no sense in 2023 when windows are self contained units. Apple have changed all sorts of other things about their desktop environment. IMO they ought to change this too.

Soo use stage manager, it’ll do cross app switching without delay using cmd-~

Simply drag a number of related windows together

Stage manager should be nice, but it takes up a huge chunk of screen real estate for no reason.

EDIT: actually it seems possible to make it "autohide". But it won't let me have more than one window visible at once!

Just drag a window from the sidebar (stage manager) on the desktop. It will take the front most window of that app.

It’s kind of buggy at times though.

I have a stage with a few terminals, vscode, and a development browser

Came here to say the same thing! Whenever I'm using my work PC the alt-tab behavior of windows drives me nuts.

The space animation lag is mind boggling. Not only is it a half second, but it locks keypress until finished.

Any Apple devs (or anyone) here who can comment about why they removed the expose-animation-duration option?

I'd love some insight, too. I was just trying to disable the delay this morning. Even with the "Reduce Motion" option checked, the delay is too long.

I went through the same and ended up disabling ProMotion on my 16 MBP because a bug makes this animation run twice as long on 120 FPS screens.

that does work but what other downstream impact will this have? Not familiar with ProMotion.

If you install yabai (https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai) it has a feature that can completely disable spaces switching animations - but it does require partially disabling SIP (worth it for yabai, IMO).

If you change spaces using the keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+1,2 etc. (they might not be set to that by default.. it's 'Switch to Desktop 1' etc in the settings), then there is still a shorter animation, and there is no input delay when switching.

For 3, enable Reduce Motion under System Settings > Accessibility > Display.

This makes switching spaces and windows nearly instant with no animation. I don't notice whatever else lost animations...so I don't miss them. Worth a try!

That turns off the animation but leaves the time delay in place. E.g. if you have a text field selected in the target window, any typing you do won't register until the fade in—fade out animation completes (exact same behavior as with the option disabled, but with the fade animation instead of the slide animation).

This.

Apple hard-codes “while lies” to make the experience smoother for those with slower devices, but they end up getting in the way if you want the UI to run fast.

It’s like having triple-buffering and vsync enabled all the time. Less chance of it looking broken, but not worth the tradeoff for those that feed on responsiveness.

The delay is caused by the fact that there’s different behavior between cmd-tab short and longer press.

Sorry will not open the horizontal list of apps.

It’s similar to the delay you have with double tap detection

Re: 2), it's particularly painful if you need the "reduce motion" accessibility setting. Instead of shrinking down from their current positions where you might glimpse a window mid-animation and see where it's going, you get a fade effect from full size windows straight to unreadably small windows.

The solution (although somewhat rough around the edges, but much, much better than other options) is to use a tiling window manager like Yabai. It will completely change the way you work with windows and spaces in macOS. This definitely solves your (1), especially with the help of `skhd` to map your keyboard shortcuts. Another option is Amethyst but it's a bit less configurable (although it supports stack layout for windows).

(3) can also be solved. Go to system preferences -> accessibility, check the "Reduce motion" checkbox. Now the spaces can be switched almost instantly without the annoying animation by using keyboard shortcuts.

Alt+Tab lets you switch to a previous window instantly. MacOS’s UI sluggishness is jarring when you’re a power user from another platform.

I wish we could remove the animation between spaces on macos. there’s always a delay before you get to use the space you switched to.

Unsure if you mean AltTab - https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ -- it's my favorite

AltTab and Rectangle is what makes Mac DE usable.

Yep, I recommend these both, a lot.

When is the last time you used macOS? Command+Tab also switches to the previous window instantly. It only brings up the switcher when you hold it longer.

It switches to the previous _app_, not window. It will bring all of that app's windows to the front. A core feature a lot of folks want is fast, window-oriented focus switching.

Cmd-`, and Cmd-Shift-`, switches between the current app's windows. Using a combination of Cmd-Tab and Cmd-`, I've never had a problem.

I think people just like what they're used to, ultimately.

Cmd-` is pretty inelegant. It disturbs your workspace, bringing all the windows you cycle through to the foreground and leaving them there. You have to play spot-the-difference looking for which window just popped up, then evaluate whether it's the one you want.

Other desktop environments put the window switcher in the center of the screen (so your eyes can unthinkingly jump straight to it), you can quickly tell "hit <tab> four times to get the window I want", and your workspace wasn't disturbed with other windows you aren't interested in.

Also CMD-~ doesn’t have a preview mode does it? It simply cycles through windows without showing all of them listed in a grid or list, unlike Windows Alt + Tab.

I've been using MacOS for over 10 years by now and I still consider it vastly inferior in this regard. I recently started using alt-tab which does a pretty good job at mimicking Windows but it's slightly buggy and introduces a tiny but noticeable delay which is a constant source of frustration to me.

Imagine you have three tasks, where each one uses one window from your browser, terminal, finder, and editor. You rarely want to switch between app windows, but you often want to switch between "task windows". The windows/Linux alt-tab style is faster here.

I have caps lock bound to open the item2 visor

Cmd~ switched cross apps without any ui or delay when yoke using stage manager

It switches between all windows within one stage

I’m using it as my primary OS since late 2020.

> I rely almost entirely on gestures on my trackpad (three fingers swipe up to see all my windows that are not minimized).

Swiping alone is unnecessarily slow so I don't do it unless I need visual assistance. I do them all though, in this order of frequency:

- Cmd+Tab for switching apps (most frequent action)

- Option+Tab (remapped) for switching windows of active app

- Three-fingers down to see all windows of current app

- Three-fingers up to see all windows (rarely used because I have too many windows open for this to be useful)

In addition I use Ctrl+{1,4} to move between different workspaces (although I sometimes use three-finger swipe left/right for this but too often I want to skip one (like going from 1 to 3) in which case swiping is annoying.

Moving windows to a different desktop/workspace I do by clicking titlebar and pressing Ctrl+{1,4}.

Relying on the "overview" (or whatever it's called) sounds convenient, but slower than what I do.

How do you get the three-fingers down behavior?

Your OS version may vary (I'm not up to date) but look for ‘App Exposé’ in the Trackpad settings.

Trackpad -> More gestures -> App Exposé

https://i.imgur.com/u9BRDU8.png (Big Sur, YMMV)

There are Mac users like myself that don't have a trackpad or touchpad. After trying the Magic Mouse when I got my Mini I reverted back to my 20 year old Microsoft optical mouse. I long for the Windows style of app switching where you can go through each window instead of the Mac style where you go through each app.

Cmd+~ switches between windows of the same application

That's not what your parent comment asked for.

You should try contexts! It also has a bunch of other features and is highly configurable. I'm not one to normally pay for software, but this is probably up there with some of the best $10 I ever spent.

https://contexts.co/

Some people are unable to (or prefer not to) use the touchpad or pointing devices.

such as having the mac docked and connected to an external screen with the original screen closed.

There are of course keyboard shortcuts to access expose or spaces, but then what's the difference between alt-tab and that?

You can also use hot corners.

Which are often annoying if you are using multiple displays because the interior corners aren't used (or at least aren't in my configuration)

How do you use those with the keyboard?

This is how I use my MacBook, but I still use a wireless touchpad just fine.

While I agree, there's some few cases where I find Alt+Tab to be superior. A small example, you are writing a PR and want to peek at the code, you can cmd+tab, look, cmd+tab again and keep typing without moving your hands from the position. So for that "peeking" it's very useful while keeping focus. I find grander gestures like three fingers up to be a lot better when I want to "context switch" though.

Now the only/big annoyance in macOS is that "closed" windows don't close the app, so you are back from a zoom meeting trying to get into the zone and you cmd+tab from code to terminal and back expecting that to work and suddenly you are greeted tabbing into Zoom, but it is closed, but it still gets in the way.

I’ve never quite gotten the appeal of Winlike alt-tab myself. Its usability rapidly degrades with the number of windows open, with the downward slope beginning at ~5 windows and curving down exponentially from there. Being that I’ve always got 10+ windows open at any given time it’s almost useless for me.

I could see some utility in a keystroke that only toggles between the two last used windows, but full-on alt-tab just doesn’t work for me.

That's exactly what alt-tab is when used without holding.

Yep, but I think that little bit of functionality alone is enough to be given its own separate shortcut that doesn't summon UI or switch to some other window if accidentally held a bit too long.

Alt tab mac switcher app allows you to set the delay, so you can set it high and only use for invisible app switching (apparition delay)

it's still not prefect as it's not forced to consider only two windows (that would require a separate hack)

You can for smaller visible thumbnails of much more than 5 windows in the switcher, or even use a list of icons, or just the fact that most recent windows are shown (and older 20+ is not) is already very useful

Same for me. Trackpad is my best friend for productivity. 4-fingers up (and also bottom-left hot corner) for Mission Control, top-left hot corner for desktop, 4-finger swipe left/right between spaces.

I don't need anything more than that, and any app that offers more just becomes noise.

The trackpad gestures is a major reason that Mac is my primary OS while Windows is there when I have to use it.

Even on my "desktop" Mac setup (which is really just my laptop in a dock) I have a full keyboard and the Magic Trackpad joined together with that tool from twelve south.

Thinking about it more I feel like I just use Windows and Mac differently. Most of the time I am in full screen mode (so any windows is just a quick swipe to the left or right) and when I am not I have multiple desktops or I have split full screen mode. Plus using 3 monitors I really just don't find myself switching all that often.

For me Windows feels like the worse management when I get used to what Mac has to offer.

KDE is so close to getting the best of both worlds out-of-box for Linux users. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a Magic Trackpad-heavy workflow (and it's probably why KDE is the default on Asahi).

- 4 finger swipe up is an overview for all desktops

- 4 finger swipe down is an overview for all windows

- 3 finger pinch does the MacOS-style desktop overview with your other desktops at the top

All of the gestures are 1:1 with the trackpad, and are functionally very useful. It feels a little cobbled together in current builds, but I'm hoping it gets extra attention with KDE6: https://youtu.be/aBEsxTVRsEo?t=100

I have been incredibly impressed by KDE in my recent uses of various Linux distros

The nice thing about kde's version of "showing all window thumbnails" is that it's also searchable by typing

> Unlike when I use Windows, I just don't use command (alt) tab on Mac. I rely almost entirely on gestures on my trackpad (three fingers swipe up to see all my windows that are not minimized).

First, ⌘+Tab & Alt+Tab do different things; the latter is far superior in doing The Right Thing.

But me too, but I use the gestures because I lack Alt+Tab, not because they're better.

I do like the gesture feature, and I think, even if I had Alt+Tab, gestures would have its own place.

I also wish the catchment for resize wasn't a single pixel in macOS. In Linux, with the shortcuts, it's 1/8th the entire window. Resizing in Linux is the entire window, which is nice now that applications feel the need to invade the title bar. (I'm looking at you, browsers.)

personally I don't use the magic mouse or the touch pad (only if I work remotely and i have the macbook with me) but the magic mouse is terrible compared to normal mouse. I use a gaming mouse with a ton of macro keys. These keys do various things, most important keys are keys for switching desktops.

The appeal of the Magic Mouse is that it allows gestures like a trackpad. If you are not a gesture person, then it’s just a funny-shaped mouse with a kinky charging method.

That was the appeal for me to try it but it just doesn’t work well. The Magic Mouse is almost unusable to me. It’s shape is so bad for the hand even when using it normally, and it instantly hurt me whenever I tried to do gestures.

I use CMD+TAB prodigiously, but only to switch to the previously open thing or the second-previously open thing. If I'm looking for a certain window I use the three-finger-swipe-up, or, if using the mouse, it has a few extra programmable buttons and one of them is programmed to do that.

It feels like CMD+TAB was designed to be used for this purpose and not for the more general ersatz 'open an application I know is currently running' mode.

But, hey, if you _do_ use it for that, this Witch window switcher seems like a great idea. More power to you!

The nice thing about macOS is that there are several equally effective paradigms for window management. For example, you use trackpad gestures for Mission Control as your primary switcher, whereas I use Command+Tab and only use Mission Control sparingly with mouse5 (no trackpad). Likewise, some people use a visible Dock, but I've never seen the point of it.

The problem is MacOs’ window switching behavior when using alt-tab and alt-`. The one switches to the most recently used other software, the other cycles through the windows of the same software.

Now imagine u have 10 terminal windows and 3 chrome windows open. And you switch back and forth between two or three of these windows. In Mac Os you cant really do that, because u have to cycle through all the windows of the same software to get back to the other terminal window youre working on.

And thats why people use non keyboard methods for switching windows, which sux,

I hate Windows, but I also hate Mac Os for its dumb opiniated design choices that after 20 years theres still no option for fixing, so u need to pay 20$ for some tools that give you sane usability (also the the need for better touch tool to get proper tap to drag without a release delay).

And the worst is the fanboys that act like Mac Os’ wonky choices are a necessity because I’m holding wrong and they never had a problem with it.

You might like kde. Imo it's superior to both windows and Mac and it's adaptable so you can have an efficient workflow.

Alt tab for Mac is a free app

> I rely almost entirely on gestures on my trackpad (three fingers swipe up to see all my windows that are not minimized).

Is a docked setup just not a thing for most Mac users?

I almost never want to use my laptop as a laptop—the keyboard is too small, looking down at the screen is bad for my neck, and multiple monitors is addictive. But as soon as I set the laptop aside and break out the external keyboard and mouse, Mac's window manager becomes completely unusable. I'm finding that the magic mouse doesn't help much because it's crippled compared to the trackpad and is horribly unergonomic. Hence the external tools to make the keyboard actually useful.

> Is a docked setup just not a thing for most Mac users?

Can’t tell for others, but the trackpad is central on how I use my Mac. I can’t imagine using an external mouse/keyboard because it would completely break my workflow. Gestures are extremely convenient when you get used to them.

So yeah, no docking.

I also don’t agree that the keyboard is too small or that multiple monitors is addictive (it’s just convenient). The neck thing is true, which is why I try to keep my main windows on the second monitor, at eye level and bigger

I found it useful because I try to avoid using mouse as much as possible.

I'm usually docked and using a model-m style keyboard and a standard two button + scroll-wheel mouse. So such gestures aren't really convenient for me. Switching apps is really painful, as I tend to have a few browser windows with different profiles, as well as a couple projects on VS Code open. It's kind of ugly imo.

I wouldn't mind if I could trigger the same gesture (as three finger swipe) with cmd or cmd+ctrl with the scroll wheel.

I use Hyper (Caps) + Space for the 3-fingers up gesture, plus Hyper + q / e for switching desktops and Hyper + w for 3-fingers down. Works very well.

That is making the assumption every user uses the Mac keyboard for typing, I for one don't when I am at my desks.

What exactly am I missing with gestures on Windows vs macOS for this purpose? 3 finger gesture brings up my windows and allows me to drag windows to different workspaces. 4 finger swipes left and right allows me to switch workspaces.

I re-code the 3-fingers movement to drag with mouse, similar to the middle-mouse button. Saves on wrist/finger pressure.

my mac doesn't have a touchpad, so the gestures are a little difficult.

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