Alt-Tabbing in Windows shows currently open windows and allows to select one of them which then becomes the active window. If there are 3 Firefox windows, then it’ll show 3 icons. A slightly different behavior is available in Mac where it shows one icon for all the open windows of an application and then provide a different keyboard shortcut to switch between all the windows of that application.
Switch between different applications: Command+Tab (for example if you have Firefox, Thunderbird and other applications). Shift+Command+Tab moves in the reverse direction.
Switch between different windows of the same application: Command+~ (for example if you have multiple windows of Firefox). Shift+Command+~ moves in the reverse direction.
However if the application is minimized then it is not activated (which is bizarre)!
If you are holding the command key and hit Q then that particular application will quit, if you hit H then that application will hide (go behind all the applications?).
A complete archive of all Mac OS X tips are available here.
- OSX #1: Getting Started with a Mac for a Windows User
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- TOTD #65: Windows 7 Beta 1 Build 7000 on Virtual Box: NetBeans + Rails + GlassFish + MySQL
- TOTD #13: Setup Mongrel for JRuby-on-Rails applications on Windows
Hello, I’d like to know what button the ~ is?
I can’t remember, and I don’t find it either…
Comment by Aasmund — January 11, 2008 @ 1:06 pm
This is the "tilde" button – right below Esc in top-left corner.
Comment by Arun Gupta — January 11, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
Hi Arun,
An interesting app I installed on my Mac (because the application switcher drives me nuts) is Witch:
http://www.manytricks.com/witch/
This is a window switcher similar to that of Gnome or Windows, meaning that alt+tab will switch amongst *all* open windows of an app. And it will un-minimize apps that have been minimized to the dock.
With this app, I can manage many windows more effectively, bringing up only the window of an app I am interested in, rather than all the open windows for that app. cmd+m will put the window back into the dock…however that introduces a problem of dock clutter! (I wish it was possible to group minimized windows…)
Comment by Gabriel Carrillo — August 6, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
thankyou so much for the ~TAB
this used to really get to me
Comment by james MacNeil — November 22, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
Cmd+` doesn’t seem to work for OO.org windows. Yet another inconsistency in Mac OS.
Comment by @ibz — February 13, 2009 @ 3:03 am
hi there,
I’ve been trying to work out if you can change the setting so that applications open even when they’re minimised.. I’m glad to find out that i’m not the only person to think this is absurd!
"However if the application is minimized then it is not activated (which is bizarre)!"
Trying out Witch now to see if that helps me out. Really tho, surely this should just be an option…
thanks,
Andy
Comment by Andy — November 22, 2009 @ 9:35 am
> Cmd+` doesn’t seem to work for OO.org windows. Yet another inconsistency in Mac OS.
Yes it does, this is what I use it for.
Comment by Coco — March 16, 2010 @ 11:54 pm