It doesn't make the screen wiggle because the hinge is directly behind it on Surface computers.

It is not changing a tab. Did you look at the picture? The taskbar is at the very bottom of the screen, exactly next to the top of the keyboard. It is as much distance as pressing the function keys, just on a different plane. You can slide your fingers to the top of the keyboard (no need to raise them) and still hit it. It is about 10x quicker than moving to the mouse, going to the taskbar, and clicking on something - and it is about 10x more precise than alt-tabbing through stuff endlessly.

On macOS I use Contexts to do this type of switching. Touching the taskbar on a Surface is sometimes less effort than hitting control+space and typing some characters of a name. I am very proficient with a keyboard.

Think of it as a touch bar that you don't have to take your eyes off the screen to use, because it's at the bottom of the screen. That might make the interaction easier to visualize. But if lifting your fingers is genuinely that annoying, you should either get a computer with a TrackPoint or (no offense) see a doctor. Hand issues are no joke, my dad struggles with them every day, and they only get worse with time.

Contexts, and it has a bunch of options, read through them. I use this and Alfred + Swift Switcher (overlapping functionality) as opposed to the dock, mission control, and spaces. This way I use keyboard instead of gestures and mouse.

Link: https://contexts.co/

might give this app a try, could you kindly tell us why is your app better than context?? https://contexts.co/

anyway, congratulations on writing such awesome apps! hope one day I can be a dev too!

I have been using https://contexts.co/ for years. It's only Intel though so I'm not sure how long it will continue to be supported with the new M1 if Rosetta support is ever dropped.

App doesn't get big updates anymore but still works great for me in Monterey. I think it's one of the most underrated apps out there. https://contexts.co

It's one of my top 3 Mac apps (BetterTouchTool + Alfred/Raycast round that up).

Some reasons why I love it: - if you have multiple windows of one app open, it makes switching to the specific one a breeze. Something cmd + tab doesn't support. For example, I have multiple Chrome windows. One is on my "Dev Profile", one is on "Personal". I hold alt then type "de" and I get switched to the "Dev Profile" chrome window right await. Hold alt then type "pe" it goes to "Personal". - Basically, it tries to make alt-tab as deterministic as possible. You can set how that determinism works too by just switching to it. For example, if I do alt + "d" just once, it'll remember that that's set to my "Dev Profile".

Really hard to explain in words. But try it and it'll all feel very intuitive. Switching at the speed of thought once your workflow is nailed down. I.e. my brain knows my keywords are "o" for obsidian, "vs" for vscode etc.

Been using the Contexts app for three years now and it’s the best IMHO. I disabled the sidebar functionality, but the switcher perfectly for me and I rarely have issues with focus when using multiple displays.

Are you looking for the same functionality or an alternative window switcher in general?
If the latter, check out contexts https://contexts.co/. Been using it since many years now and can't go back..

What you want is called a “macos application switcher” or “macos window switcher”. The most recent app I’ve used is Contexts https://contexts.co/ and another app is command-tab plus https://noteifyapp.com/command-tab-plus/ . Back in the day I used to use Witch https://manytricks.com/witch/ so there’s three options

Now I just use mission control on the top left corner or the five-finger gesture

I’ve tried just about all of them and Contexts has been the clear winner for me. https://contexts.co/

Command-Tab Plus is also worth a look and I think did apps and windows at the same time, at least their website shows it doing that. https://noteifyapp.com/command-tab-plus/

Keyboard Maestro’s is surprisingly good too but I don’t think it would switch between apps and windows together, it certainly doesn’t have multiple modes or as many settings as Contexts.

You can actually force-click on the icon in the dock and it brings up that app's windows so you can choose, similar to how you'd hover over the app icon in Windows' taskbar. macOS is mostly geared around having multiple windows on screen at the same time so it expects you to basically use Mission Control to switch between them, instead of the Dock.

But I usually just install Contexts which is really awesome for window management.

Just about everything you want to do can be done with Yabai.

Link: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai

While it has a fantastic wiki, it is kind of a hassle to get set up if you don't know a little shell scripting.

There are however a few built in tools that can help you out. If you right click on an icon in the dock you can go into "Options" and assign it to a specific desktop or to all desktops if you want it to follow you to every space.

On MacOS you can open as many instances of any application you want by using the following terminal command.

open -n -a "APPLICATION NAME"

Where "APPLICATION NAME" is the name of whatever application you want to open.

Obviously running a terminal command every time is kind of tedious so you might want to use an application like Karabiner, Alfred, or Keyboard Maestro to bind a shortcut key that replaces "APPLICATION NAME" with the name of the active application. Each instance of the application can be set to a specific space or to all spaces independently.

You can't rename spaces without external tools like Spaces Renamer on MacForge or Yabai unfortunately. As far as seeing the open applications on any space, Mission, you could use a tool like Contexts to see which applications are open on the current space or see all open applications grouped by space. It's not ideal but it can get the job done.

Link: https://contexts.co

ps. Contexts has an infinite free trial so there's no harm in trying it out.

Contexts for Mac https://contexts.co/. It makes working on just the laptop without the additional monitors I had at work so much easier. The other thing I liked was that it was a one time payment $10 after the free trial. Subscriptions make me uncomfortable.

I’m not familiar with Contexts, but it sounds like it’s not collecting the window names correctly. Does Emacs show up in the macOS default command-tab switcher?

I’m pretty sure that Emacs doesn’t do anything unusual when creating window titles, so it sounds like it’s a bug in Contexts, which I assume is this thing.

Welcome!

I too am a longtime Windows user before getting my first Mac last year. One of the things that I miss the most from Windows is the ability to switch among windows (not apps) using Cmd + Tab. Unfortunately, there's no way you can configure that natively. But Contexts fixed it for me! This is one of the most helpful apps I found when it comes to transition from Windows to macOS so I thought I would leave it here.

Some nice apps in this list!

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One I love and can't really live without anymore:

Contexts

cost: $9,99

Site https://contexts.co/

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A very useful window manager for macOS that especially helps, if you like the fullscreen feature like I do. You'll always be able to switch between the open instances of an app with it.

I wasn't updated in a while afaik, but it works fine in Mojave.

Another option is Contexts (https://contexts.co/). Been using it for a few years. Absolutely love it.

Not a fan of the CMD + ` option myself as it requires a second step instead of just CMD + Tabbing to the specific window.