cmd + tab to change windows and not application

Question

Level 1

0 points

cmd + tab to change windows and not application

You might clearly see the former Windows and Unix user in me but using cmd+Tab to switch files (not only application) is a really powerful tool. Expose is not close to be as useful. In fact I can't see what good it might be to switch from an application to another.

Any suggestions on how to have cmd + tab change windows?
I think I saw Adobe Photoshop behave that way.

Thanks

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Oct 4, 2010 12:25 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Oct 4, 2010 12:41 PM in response to bgalarneau

The most similar I know of is "move focus to active window or next window" which is defaulted to ctrl-F4 or ctrl-fn-F4. You can remap it here "SystemPreferences-Keyboard&Mouse-KeyboardShortcuts"

I'm sure there are some 3rd party toolbar apps out there which can give you closer to what you are looking for as well.

You can also use set up something like F3 for Expose show all windows then navigate through them using the arrow keys or Tab/~

Reply

Answer 2

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Oct 4, 2010 12:52 PM in response to bgalarneau

COMMAND-~ [that's the tilde key] will cycle between all open windows for a given application. Is this what you are looking for? You can find the entire list of keyboard shortcuts here:

Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts.

Message was edited by: Kappy

Reply

Answer 3

bgalarneau Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 5, 2010 7:03 AM in response to taylor.henderson

Hitting ctrl-fn-f4 works well (thanks) but the order of the files does not change depending on usage. something the current cmd-tab does.
Quickly swapping is enjoyable when you can swap back and forth between 2 files.

Also, ctrl-fn-f4 does not work well with Words.
While scrolling, the flow of files stopped after le last Word window.
Pressing ctr-fn-f4 again makes nothing anymore and then it does. I'm don't see the logic of the command.

As for cmd-~ (Kappy), it doesn't appear to do anything. It might be because I have a French keyboard (~ is alt-ç).

Reply

Answer 4

Oct 5, 2010 11:52 AM in response to bgalarneau

I can't think of much else. Perhaps you could change your own working habits to take advantage of spaces or something otherwise I feel expose is designed to be an improvement on windows alt-tab but it is more mouse friendly than keyboard.

These are the first 2 apps I found that will do what you want.
http://manytricks.com/witch/
http://kapeli.com/switche/

Reply

Answer 5

bgalarneau Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 5, 2010 1:23 PM in response to taylor.henderson

switché works well. Great!

Reply

Answer 6

Dec 14, 2010 11:22 AM in response to bgalarneau

OSX does this natively, switching between windows within a program is done by holding command/apple key and press `~ key.
I remember being very very excited when I found this out by accident a few years ago.

Reply