OSX: Switching between project windows
Answered
Hey all,
How does one change between project windows in OS X? I don't even see a menu option. Right now, I have to move one project window to see the other so that I can switch. Keystrokes? Menu?
Thanks!
Aye
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Aye Thu wrote:
Currently there is no such keystroke. Actually Command+TAB should switch
windows. But it's not true for Java windows. Please post a bug report
to Apple.
Best regards,
Vladimir Kondratyev
_____________________
JetBrains
Vladimir Kondratyev wrote:
>> Hey all,
>> How does one change between project windows in OS X? I don't even see
>> a menu option. Right now, I have to move one project window to see the
>> other so that I can switch. Keystrokes? Menu?
Command-Tab switches between applications. Command-~ is the recommended
keybinding an application should provide to switch between windows
within an application.
Ciao,
Gordon
--
Gordon Tyler (Software Developer)
Quest Software <http://java.quest.com/>
260 King Street East, Toronto, Ontario M5A 4L5, Canada
Voice: 416-643-4846 | Fax: 416-594-1919
FYI, the Apple bug reporter system is located at http://bugreport.apple.com/
An IDEA feature has been filed (#10301) regarding this issue.
Hi Gordon,
It's really command-` (meta-backquote)...
I filed a bug with Apple... I had wanted to for a long time, just forgot about it! :)
Bug ID: 3232126
Chris Laprun wrote:
True. Apple refers to it as Command-~ though, don't they?
Ciao,
Gordon
--
Gordon Tyler (Software Developer)
Quest Software <http://java.quest.com/>
260 King Street East, Toronto, Ontario M5A 4L5, Canada
Voice: 416-643-4846 | Fax: 416-594-1919
Chris Laprun wrote:
Except that people can only see their own reported bugs ;)
What was your report? I'm not sure that I see how the problem is a bug
on Apple's part. IDEA needs to add a keybinding to switch between
frames. In the OSX keymap this should be bound to meta-`. No Apple bug
that I can see...
Ciao,
Gordon
--
Gordon Tyler (Software Developer)
Quest Software <http://java.quest.com/>
260 King Street East, Toronto, Ontario M5A 4L5, Canada
Voice: 416-643-4846 | Fax: 416-594-1919
Yes, and unfortunately so... I guess Apple does it this way because of NDA issues Oh well...
While I agree that it would be nice that IDEA provide a keybinding to switch between frames, I view the lack of command-` implementation for Java applications as a problem for Apple if their ambition is to make Java applications feel as native as possible. So my bug report was more a feature request (for UI consistence across Java and native applications) than a real bug report.
This is just my opinion, though. IDEA is not the only Java application for which I found myself reaching for command-` ;)
Best,
Chris
Gordon Tyler wrote:
I cannot beleave that each application implements its own way of
swithing between windows... It's a window manager businnes to switch
windows. Isn't is?
Regards,
Vladimir Kondratyev
_____________________
JetBrains
Yes. AFAIK. I do as well because it's more readable I guess! :)
Best,
Chris
The problem is that windows are conceptually different on Mac OS than on Windows. On Windows, a window is more or less an application by itself: there is a confusion between the notions of windows, documents and applications. The result is that you can switch between windows and applications indifferently using alt-tab.
On Mac OS, applications don't have windows per se. You opened a document that happens to be shown in a window but the application is NOT the window. For example, you can have a running application which doesn't have any opened window. Mac OS provides a way to switch between open applications using the command-tab (meta-tab) shortcut. If an application has several opened (several documents and/or toolbars), you cannot switch between them using command-tab. OS X provides a recommended shortcut to switch between windows in the context of a given application. This shortcut is command-~ (it's really command-`). However, this shortcut is NOT official AFAIK (I don't think it is in Apple's HIG but I might be wrong).
Gordon's point (if I understand it correctly) is that not providing a keybinding switch between frames assumes a Windows-centric point of view that a window can live by itself independtly of the application it is tied to. This view breaks, for the reasons outlined above, on Mac OS.
While I tend to agree that it should be Apple's responsibility to provide a clearly defined shortcut to switch between windows in the context of a given application and implement this for Java applications, the fact remains that IDEA made an assumption that is not platform-independent. A shortcut should be provided and it would default to alt-tab in the default keymap (for Windows users) and to command-` (meta-`) in the OS X default keymap.
Best,
Chris
Chris Laprun wrote:
Mapping it to Alt-Tab on Windows would clash with the OS. Probably it
would be overridden by the OS and never actually work.
The concept doesn't matter cleanly to other OSes in which windows are
all equal. But for cross-platform consistency perhaps Windows and Linux
could map it to Alt-` ;)
Ciao,
Gordon
--
Gordon Tyler (Software Developer)
Quest Software <http://java.quest.com/>
260 King Street East, Toronto, Ontario M5A 4L5, Canada
Voice: 416-643-4846 | Fax: 416-594-1919
Gordon Tyler wrote:
matter -> map
Sheesh.
--
Gordon Tyler (Software Developer)
Quest Software <http://java.quest.com/>
260 King Street East, Toronto, Ontario M5A 4L5, Canada
Voice: 416-643-4846 | Fax: 416-594-1919
That was my point exactly. This shortcut should be transparent on all platforms. That's why it would default to alt-tab on Windows (and Linux) so that users are not bewildered by alt-tab not working anymore to switch windows. And it would default to meta-` on OS X for the same reason.
The idea would be that people would rarely want to change the default binding because it would just do what's expected on their favorite platform.
Best,
Chris
Chris Laprun wrote:
>>Mapping it to Alt-Tab on Windows would clash with the
>>OS. Probably it
>>would be overridden by the OS and never actually
>>work.
The problem with this is that on Windows, Alt-Tab switches between ALL
windows regardless of which application they belong to. On OSX,
Command-` is implemented by the application to switch between the
windows of that particular application.
The two behaviours are different and therefore shouldn't be mapped on
Windows to Alt-Tab.
Ciao,
Gordon
--
Gordon Tyler (Software Developer)
Quest Software <http://java.quest.com/>
260 King Street East, Toronto, Ontario M5A 4L5, Canada
Voice: 416-643-4846 | Fax: 416-594-1919
Ok now that it is settled that cmd-` needs to be implemented at the application level, can Jetbrains solve this for mac let us stop talking about other platforms here? I work with a handful of intellij projects at the same time and since the multi-project concept is not really well working in intellij, making cmd-` work would be a minimum. This omission is slowing me down so much. cmd-` works for Chrome, VSCode and other apps. The "Java" limitation will NEVER be handled by Apple, they always think that their stuff is perfect and never help. I am just hoping someone at Intellij is different.
@Srenaud IntelliJ IDEA already has Cmd+backtick assigned to "activate next window". This post is created back in 2003. Almost all our IDE is rewritten since that time.
Thank you so much M Annikov! You just made me a lot more productive. I really appreciate the quality of your support!
Is there a way to list all projects and choose one to switch? cmd + backtick just switches to next window, but I like to have 3-4 projects open with some other windows too.
Currently using Witch to do this, but is very slow and a paid app :(
See https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/open-close-and-move-projects.html#switch-projects