Comments on: How do I switch between different windows of the same program in OS X using keyboard

Question: How do I switch between different windows of the same program in OS X using keyboard

chill — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 06:12:13 -0800

How do I switch between different windows of the same program in OS X using the keyboard?

AppleKey+Tab cycles through different programs, but suppose I have a Firefox window open, plus its "Manage Bookmarks" window open, how do I switch between those two without having to hit F10, go to my trackpad, position the mouse over one of the windows and clicking?

By: anathema

anathema — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 06:18:09 -0800

Cmd-~

By: chill

chill — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 06:28:50 -0800

Brilliant, thanks.

By: TheDonF

TheDonF — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 07:16:50 -0800

Welcome to 'I've just got a Mac, where the hell are the keyboard shortcuts' thing (at least, that's what it sounds like). I've just spent the last three weeks going through the same thing with my Mac Mini.

You'll find it great fun after spending all weekend working on a Mac and then going back to work and spending time on a Windows machine. You'll probably spend all day trying to hit Cmd+Q to quit apps and Cmd+W to close app windows. It's even more fun if you live in the UK as the @ and " keys have been swapped over!

Hint: if you're looking for the # symbol, it's not marked on the keyboard, but it's ALT+3.

By: cameleon

cameleon — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 08:05:13 -0800

Since the original question has already been answered: for windows, the shortcut key is Alt+F6.

By: RecalcitrantYouth

RecalcitrantYouth — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 08:27:01 -0800

A few other OS-X keyboard shortcuts tips: The Apple List of shortcuts. The more complete Rixstep list. (That funny diagonal line icon is the Option key). Both contain the Cmd-` shortcut for switching between windows of the same app.

If you're looking for a nice keyboard-centric way to switch between all windows of all applications, I highly recommend Witch. There's a good review of it here from MacWorld.

By: Robot Johnny

Robot Johnny — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 08:34:54 -0800

And don't forget the handy (and oh-so-cool-looking) Exposé features... Pressing F9 shrinks all apps' open windows for you to pick from, F10 shows you just those of the current app, and F11 hides all apps to show you the desktop.

And Cmd-TAB lets you cycle between open apps.

By: Robot Johnny

Robot Johnny — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 08:36:12 -0800

Oops -- now see in your question that you're familiat with Exposé already. Still uber-handy, tho!

By: papercake

papercake — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 09:09:08 -0800

more tangental pile-on, but also notice that (with expose) if you hold [shift] key those things happen in slow... motion...

For no good reason that I can think of but "hey... that's kinda cool!"

By: chill

chill — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 09:31:30 -0800

Your spot on TheDonF, I bought an iBook about 3 weeks and being the kind of user in Windows that does pretty much everything with the keyboard, it's been a pretty frustrating time! This question I asked here is I think the last thing that I hadn't figured out our found the solution elsewhere. And yes, I'm in the UK and use Windows at work so that @/" thing is pretty annoying.

I can recommend a great book that covers most things - The Missing Manual for Mac OS X. I note there is also one specifically for people switching from PC to Mac.

Thanks for the other tips folks.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 09:58:58 -0800

Shift-3 is #--it is on the keyboard. Alt-3 is the pound sign (the english pound)

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 10:00:16 -0800

Slightly related, is there a keyboard shortcut to give Finder focus, no matter which program I'm currently using?

By: chill

chill — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 10:37:57 -0800

Maybe it is just a UK thing amberglow, but on my iBook, the symbol on the 3 key is £, and in order to use it, you hit alt-3 as you mentioned. With the other symbols on the number keys it is shift-n to use them. That's Apple's supposed usability for you.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 10:46:48 -0800

I second the recommendation for Witch. It is absolutely amazing and already a very valued part of my application stable.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 11:47:39 -0800

If you want customise a bit more, uControl lets you remap keys, among other things (it's especially useful on a laptop).

Strange, Chill - Shift+3 gets me a £ on my UK iBook (Alt+3 being #, which is indeed unlabelled).

By: chill

chill — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 11:51:49 -0800

You're right jack_mo, for some reason my keyboard was set to US English. Sorry for the slur, Apple!

I just installed Witch, it is perfect, I espcially like being able to switch to minimized programs.

By: joeclark

joeclark — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:27:44 -0800

When you say "alt," you mean "Option." Shift, Ctrl, Command, and Option are the modifier keys on Macs. Alt is listed for environments where you need Windows or Linux compatibility, like Virtual PC.

On the U.S., Canadian English, and Australian keyboards, £ is in fact Option-3.

By: chill

chill — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 15:15:42 -0800

It does actually have alt written on the key on my iBook, plus a meaningless symbol. I realise this is traditionally referered to as the "Option" key but presumably Apple are moving towards labelling it alt, as Option/Weird Symbol isn't exactly intuitive, especially to those of us coming from Windows world.

By: oaf

oaf — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 15:50:43 -0800

Note that Cmd-~ does not work in BBEdit Lite. (Well, it does, but it doesn't change windows.)

By: amberglow

amberglow — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 10:40:15 -0800

i didn't know the keyboards were different--I have # above 3, and my key is alt/option together. sorry.

(it is weird tho--$ is shift-4--you'd think they'd have put it in the same place for £)

By: nobody

nobody — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 12:11:14 -0800

Cmd-~ works great in web-browsers to switch between windows (as shift-Cmd-Arrrow is great for moving between tabs in Safari), but as oaf pointed out, it doesn't work in all programs.

To the questioner ("chill"): Note that after hitting F10 in expose, you can use the arrow-keys to chose a window and then hit return to activate it. This will work anywhere (on a mac) and will keep you off the awful trackpad.