Since AI models became a viable way to build software, one of the the first things to bring me joy was was to pick any open source project
and change it however I wanted without having to invest a huge amount of time. I don’t need to push this changes upstream (which is more about
dealing with people than computers) just implement quality of life improvements and enjoy them.
I’ve used macOS most of my life, I got used to most of its nuances, but the way you navigate between windows with your keyboard, i.e. cmd+tab,
is completely broken and make me miss Linux, and even Windows. The way it works just doesn’t match my workflow. As a developer I keep a browser, a terminal, and a text editor most of the time. I will cycle quickly between them as I do stuff. Even with agentic coding at full speed, the need is still there.
Now, one usually work on multiple things at a time, moreover with the help of agents, which means more browsers, terminals and text editors.
I think the macOS multi-window SDI model is completely broken. Using cmd+tab doesn’t cut for me. I want to switch to a particular terminal, not bring to the front all the iTerm2.app windows. Then the combination of cmd+\` also sucks. Adding app specific tabs to the mix makes things worse.
A while ago I discovered alt-tab and I couldn’t be more grateful for it. It brings sanity to window switching. It needed a few tweaks to make it work and look exactly as I want. But the tweaks are available in the excelent settings screen.
Lately, Alt-Tab started to suffer from scope creep. A lot of functions were introduced, and a new ‘Alt Tab Pro’ version released. All good for keeping it evolving, just not my thing.
That’s why I decided to fork it and strip away all the features I don’t care about, leaving a much more leaner app that, I feel, doesn’t need anything else: CmdTab
It’s very opinionated (which I think it’s on point with this new AI assisted era) so this is what you can expect from it:
- Removed all window thumbnails. All terminals and text editors look the same from a distance.
- Request fewer permissions, don’t need to take screenshots!
- Display a long list that is readable, I keep a lot of windows at hand.
- Lateral scrolling doesn’t cut for me either, make it a vertical list.
- Hijack the standard macOS CMD+Tab shortcut by default.
Enjoy!