Hi all.
I have two spaces/desktops right now. One is empty except for Mac HD, the other has SKype, Messenger, and Mona on it.Right now, if I do cmd-tab, it just takes me through every app that is open.
But I set up these spaces because I don't want to have to go through a minimum of three windows or more just to switch apps. So I want cmd-tab to just be restricted to apps in the current space, and if a message happens on Skype, then I'll switch spaces with ctrl-left/right and go into Skype to deal with it.
I've found three things that can do this. Contexts, (not really a fan),Witch, (haven't tried it), and Command Plus Tab 2, (again haven't tried it yet). They are $10, $15, and either $16 or $40 (depending on if you want a license for one or three Macs), respectively. They also do a lot of window manipulation and searching and such that I don't really need and am extremely unlikely to ever use.
I Didn't like Contexts because it added verbiage, instead of just app names it said "system panel"or such, and it sometimes opened another app from the one it announced when letting go of cmd-tab. If one of the other ones works, I'll pay for it. But I kind of don't want to, just because there are a ton of features I'm not going to use. So is there an app, or better yet a setting I don't know about, that only does that one thing?
To be really clear, imagine in one space I have Skype,Mona,and Messenger. In another I have Firefox and TextEdit. Right now cmd-tab just goes through all five apps, no matter where I am. If I'm in the space with Firefox and TextEdit, I only want cmd-tab to cycle through Firefox and TextEdit, and probably the Finder window that is the actual desktop. It should only start cycling through Mona and so on if I hit ctrl-left/right to enter that space.
I feel like I'll probably be buying a license for one of those three programs mentioned above,but thought I'd ask just in case anybody had any other ideas. Thanks in advance for any help.
Comments
Contact Apple
Apple should really add a setting to Spaces that restricts Command-Tab to only the current space. Send Apple feedback about this. I'll do it as well. I'm not sure if the accessibility address is the best place or via Feedback Assistant, though perhaps both might be good places. I've wanted this for years.
https://support.apple.com/guide/feedback-assistant/get-started-fbab81460adb/mac
Unless I’m mistaken…
Unless I’m mistaken, we used to be able to do this in stock macOS. Has that changed?
Should be in settings under the Mission Control option. Unless they have removed that in Sequoia?
Not that I see.
I don't know that it's worth contacting Apple, although I guess I'll try. If you google there are requests to do this back to like 2011. The consensus seems to be, grab one of the programs that let's you do it. So I mean, the feature's already out there. I agree it could easily be a setting, but I also don't particularly mind paying for it either. And FYI this is a general request, not specific to the blind community. I gather restriction is standard behavior for a lot of window managers on Linux, for example.
It's funny, on Windows, window/app switching was restricted to a desktop, but I had to manually send apps to another desktop every time I logged in. Mac sends them to a desktop automatically when I log in, but now I need something else to do the restriction. Mac deals with cmd-tab faster than Windows, but I think I'd still like the organizational possibilities.
Why waste money?
Why waste money on an app, when you can simply go into your Mission Control settings, and set it to only work within the active space? Like I said above, unless this has changed in Sequoia.
Because that setting does not exist.
Or else it's a setting that I'm missing. Maybe there is one that does that, but I'm not seeing anything obvious.
In system settings/desktop and dock/mission control I have: automatically arrange spaces based on recent use (off), when switching to an application switch to a space with open windows for the application (off), group windows by application (on), displays have separate spaces (on), something about dragging Windows, something about hot corners,and shortcuts, which just has things like ctrl-up arrow to bring up mission control.
So which setting do you think accomplisheswhat I'm after? Like Isaid, I'm not seeing anything obvious. The one that makes the most sense is switching to spaces with open windows, that might have been on by default. Turning it on again changes nothing, cmd-tab still goes through all open applications, no matter which space I'm in.
Me too I use multiple…
Me too I use multiple desktops on windows and since Ventura (first macos version) I didn't find a way to replicate my workflow on mac.
Fair enough
It sounds like it should be that second option, but it also sounds like the options may have changed over the more recent versions of macOS. I say this because, that option sounds like you should only be able to command tab apps, better within that particular window (space). To satisfy my curiosity, however, have you tried control tab, or option tab, while working within a single space?
Neither of them do that, Windows behavior.
ctrl-tab switches between tabs in Firefox, among other things. I have no idea what option-tab does, but it's not switching apps within a space.
Re: Windows
All three programs will do this. You have to make a couple of settings changes in Contexts, Command Plus claims to do it by default, and I don't remember what Witch does exactly. So you can get the behavior easily enough, you just have to pay for it, as far as I know.
Both Contexts and Command Tab Plus have free trials, not sure about Witch. So it should be simple enough to evaluate them and see if any work for you. And keep in mind,, you're paying for more than that. As an example, Contexts will announce things like "Firefox (f)" when you cmd-tab.
That's because you can also search for apps/windows by letter, and their big claim is that they get it down to as few letters as possible. So I think the idea is that if you have a bunch of stuff open, you just type 'f' or maybe 'fi', and it will find Firefox out ofthe thirty things you've got open.
I forget what the others do, but they have more functions than just the restriction. So you might find some other useful things in them. I might too, it's just that I'm after this specific behavior, and I've never felt the need for the ability to search for open windows. Who knows, maybe I'd end up loving it.
Ah well
I could have sworn the feature was built into Mission Control. I need to juice up my old MBP and check that out. Because, now I'm on a mission. lol
Good luck with whatever you choose. Side note, that search feature i can see myself using if I had a ton of apps running simultaneously. 🤷
I Found An Open Source App