Window-Switcher: Alt+(backtick) same-app window switching for Windows 10/11

And conversely https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ to keep your sanity on macOS.

The things that annoys me most atm: when I have multiple VS Code windows, and my web browser, if I Cmd+Tab from my web browser to VS Code _all_ the VS Code windows pop to the foreground, even ones I'm not focusing. In other words, I can't write code and also be able to see the result at the same time. Just because I choose to have stuff I'm not working on that's completely irrelevant to the thing at hand being behind other things I am working on. Unless I spend time manually putting windows in non-preferred locations or closing things or doing things that are in no way related to the things I have visible and am working on right now at the moment.

And if I minimise then I have to minimise again if I Alt+` through the application windows. It's just all so very very tedious on macOS. Wouldn't want to use it if it wasn't for work.

Since we are talking about window switching, a little rant:

there are two common orders for switching windows/tabs: most recently used, and sequential. Some use the first one (e.g. Windows), some use the other (e.g. most browsers). They both have their merits, so people prefer one or the other.

Yet, almost no software provide a toggle to customize this (Firefox does, but it has an even weirder quirk).

I understand modern software can't have billions of settings for every single thing for (good) practical reasons, but deep in my heart, I'm still annoyed by the fact "we have all the technology, yet we still have to compromise to this".

I miss these macOS shortcuts when I am other platforms. For Windows, I wrote my own extensive AHK scripts to duplicate most Mac shortcuts I regularly use, including cursor movement

On Linux I now use Toshy

https://github.com/RedBearAK/toshy

Thanks for making this, but small note:

On QWERTZ, backtick ` is: a dead key, situated left of backspace, and it's in the "upper row", too.

So there the combo is actually Alt+Shift+´+Space, in need of two hands - it's very hard to imagine a worse default key combo choice for this task, compared to Alt+Tab. I'm glad you made it configurable.

Fun fact: one of the first public drafts for multi-line Strings in Java expected the delimiter to be ```, until I pointed out the issue as above to Brian Goetz at JAX in Mainz where he had presented said draft. My proudest professional moment.

Take away: If you deal with keyboard magic and ergonomics, spend a couple minutes to check your assumptions behind your defaults in the other big keyboard layouts.

Compared to KDE, I have a feeling that both Windows and macOS have pretty primitive usability options. Windows got some improvements in this area only recently, but I think macOS is still behind.

When I'm using macOS, I can't stand the GUI without these tools:

Rectangle: https://rectangleapp.com/

Easy Move+Resize: https://github.com/dmarcotte/easy-move-resize

They move the macOS desktop usability near the place where KDE was in the late 2000's.

For those mentioning autohotkey, this is what I use when on windows do get the same functionality:

  CycleCurrentApplication() { ; {{{1
      curID := WinGetID("A")
  
      ActiveClass := WinGetClass("A")
   ActiveExe := WinGetProcessName("A")
      oList := WinGetList("ahk_exe " ActiveExe " ahk_class " ActiveClass,,,)
      Loop oList.Length
      {
          index := oList.Length - A_Index + 1
          State := WinGetMinMax("ahk_id " oList[index])
          nextID := WinGetID("ahk_id " oList[index])
  
          if (State != -1) ; if window not minimised
          {
              WinID := oList[index]
              break
          }
      }
      WinActivate("ahk_id " WinID)
  } ; }}}1

the 'activeclass' AND 'activeexe' are there to handle cases like explorer. I primarily use this for multiple instances of firefox (although I've got specific binds to jump directly to non-media and media firefox)

Cool project. Even after the improvements in Windows 10 and 11, windowing could do with some work, which spurs projects like this (ironic given the OS is called Windows).

I hardly use Alt-Tab. I use Windows-Tab instead, and in the resulting Task View, mouse over to the window I need.

I've bound that keyboard shortcut as well as Ctrl-Windows-Left and Ctrl-Windows-Right (switch virtual desktop left or right) each to a different mouse button which makes things so much more productive. I've got a wireless Logitech G502x with about seven buttons on it, best mouse investment ever.

After RDPing to my home workstation on a MacBook I realised how much my productivity collapsed if I don't have access to that mouse.

For years I used a freeware utility called VistaSwitcher for this. Could similarly customize the hotkey and also allowed changing the Alt-Tab menu to be a quicker-to-parse text based list instead of the giant thumbnails Windows uses by default.

The Mac way of cycling within the same program is very useful and one of the things I like borrowing when using Windows, as accidentally Alt-Tab'ing to a different program when there are multiple windows open from one source (eg: text editor) becomes annoying.

Stockholm syndrome much? Why would the windows that I am multi-tasking on just coveniently belong to the same app for me to use this shortcut?

I am not sure but having used AutoHotKey recently for a few qol things, it feels like AHK would be able to do this too.

Anyone has a working AutoHotKey script for same program window switch on Windows? The same way how Ubuntu Unity works.

Last one I used didn't work with File Explorer (since it is the same program as the Desktop), and I couldn't make it work, and it was more annoying than useful at the end.

In Gnome (I think?) I am able to scroll over an application icon to switch between same application windows. Is this possible in Win11?