Alt-Tab

The use of the modifier key in using differs from typical modifier key use in the following ways: • There is a difference in behavior when the user releases and presses again vs. holding continuously while pressing repeatedly. • Releasing has an immediate effect: it closes the task switcher and switches to the selected task. There are many subtleties to the behavior of , and they have remained mostly unchanged over the years. The behavior follows these rules: • If there is more than one window, the task list appears as soon as is pressed while is being held down. • The task list remains open until is released. • moves the cursor forward in the list; moves it backward. • or will autorepeat if held down (useful if there are many windows). • With the initial press of or , the selection cursor starts on the window immediately following or immediately preceding the active one. • If there are no topmost windows above the active window, an initial wraps the cursor around to the end of the list. • Using the mouse to click on a task icon in the task window switches to that task (does not work on Windows XP and earlier). • Pressing or clicking the mouse outside of the task window while is still down cancels the switch. • The windows are listed by their Z-order. • Any windows that are "always on top" are placed at the front of the Z-order sequence, followed by the current window and the windows underneath it. • The desktop is given a window just like it was a top-level window. This no longer works on Windows 10. • Switching to a window moves it to the front of the Z-order, with the exception that "always on top" windows remain topmost and at the front of the list. • When the task switcher window is not active, places the active window at the bottom of the Z-order. In Windows 8 the behavior has changed: the window will be moved one level down the Z-order instead of going to the end. • is equivalent to one except that minimized windows are selected without being restored. • Minimizing a window also sends it to the back of the Z-order in the same way as . The rules have the following consequences: • In the absence of "always on top" windows such as Task Manager, pressing , pressing , releasing , and releasing (the typical way keyboard modifiers are used) will always alternate between the two most recent tasks. • can restore the most recently minimized window. (If there are "always on top" windows, the lowest of these will be selected instead.) • Pressing - (two tabs with continuously held down) performs the same quick switch back and forth, but between three programs. Any number of presses can be used to achieve this with any number of windows. When the task list is initially activated by pressing , the list is populated in this order: • Any '''always-on-top' top-level windows'' according to Z-order, front-to-back. • All ordinary top-level windows according to Z-order, front-to-back. The task list does not change order while it is open, but the order of tasks can change between invocations of the task list. Windows Vista changed the default behavior The order of the list corresponds directly to the z-order, once the windows have been sorted according to 'always-on-top' status. Alt-Shift-Esc is equivalent to one Alt-Shift-Tab except that minimized windows are selected without being displayed. == Windows-specific issues and hacks ==

works even if Windows Explorer is no longer running. On Windows NT 3.51 and prior, is managed by CSRSS (Client/Server Runtime Subsystem). On Windows NT 4.0 and later, it's handled by the kernel mode windowing system driver (win32k.sys). It works even when Control-Alt-Delete| and (Task Manager) (which are managed by Winlogon) do not. may be intercepted (or effectively disabled) by means of a low-level keyboard hook. Such a technique is used by applications such as the Virtual Network Computing (VNC) viewer to pass keystrokes to the remote desktop when the VNC window is active. Under Windows XP, the Tweak UI PowerToy, can adjust the number of rows and columns in the task list window, or it can be adjusted via a registry edit. This is helpful if there are so many windows that the list would spill over into multiple pages. Another Microsoft PowerToy, Replacement, while it is displayed, but one can navigate through this dialog using mouse even if it is completely overlapped by some window. This bug is reported to be user profile specific. Some user profiles on the same machine may encounter this bug, some not. As discovered, the problem is sometimes caused by desktop gadgets system. After killing sidebar.exe process (which hosts the gadgets), the problem disappears. After restarting sidebar the problem appears again. This bug also happens when ipoint.exe, the Microsoft Intellipoint mouse driver, is running. Other programs causing this behaviour were reported as well. The actual reason this problem occurs is because [zero-sized always-on-top windows at (0,0)] cause Windows Explorer to set the alt-tab properties incorrectly. The solution is to download and run a program which will remove these flags. [ftp://ftp.cygnus-software.com/pub/AltTabFixer.zip download] To show the XP icons in Windows 7 advanced users can add a new DWORD value AltTabSettings in the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ and set its value to 1. Using Windows 7 the additional key combination brings up the switcher dialog and it remains on screen after all the keys have been released. A user can move through the dialog in any direction using the arrow keys, or through in a linear manner, wrapping at the end of the list back to the beginning. In this mode, the key or a mouse click selects the desired window which gains the focus and the dialog is dismissed; dismisses with no change of focus. In Windows 7, to use a switcher dialog similar to that in XP, one can keep Left- pressed, tap on Right- and then press . There is a common problem associated with the use of . It is very easy for the user to mistakenly use instead, changing the system language through the use of a default keybind. To solve this issue, go into Control Panel/Regional Settings/Languages/Details and there is a button that allows the user to configure the shortcuts to switch languages - he/she can disable it or change it to something harder to press by mistake. This problem is reported on Windows XP and Windows 7. == Non-Windows functionality ==

macOS Similar functionality exists on macOS using instead of , and switching between applications rather than windows. The Mac's switcher has the additional capabilities of pointing at the desired icon with the mouse (also present in Windows Vista and above), and dropping files on applications' icons. Selected application can be hidden or closed using or keys without closing the menu. works similarly to switch between windows within the same application. Once has been invoked, changes behavior to mimic (i.e. it cycles backwards). Using or allows the user to select the window to focus on. The and arrow keys may also be used to navigate the application switcher. This functionality does not automatically restore windows from an application in which all windows been minimized. To restore a window, one needs to press as many times as necessary to choose the desired application, and hold the Option key just prior to releasing the Command button. This will restore the most relevant window in the application. There was no default key binding for application switching in Classic Mac OS. Third party control panels (such as ApplWindows and LiteSwitch) provided this behavior. iOS iOS adds comparable functionality using instead of , as with macOS. The iOS switcher allows the user to move between recently used applications (nine in landscape, six in portrait), as opposed to "open" applications, since the concept of an open application is considerably less clear on iOS than other desktop operating systems. cycles backwards, as in OS X. Unix Unix-like desktop systems such as fvwm, KDE, Xfce, and GNOME have added a compatible function. On some systems including Sun's CDE and old versions of fvwm, the key combination is mapped to less sophisticated functionality such as only alternating between two windows, cycling forward or backward in a list of all windows in a fixed order, or opening a task applet in which one has to use arrow keys or the mouse to select a task and then click or push Enter. Some window managers such as WindowLab forego the onscreen window list and simply bring each window to the front in turn as is pressed. Not all window managers provide this functionality as a core feature. For example, Blackbox does not; users desiring this behavior can add it by running a helper application such as bbkeys. Compiz Fusion Compiz Fusion (aka Beryl, Compiz) has similar functionality, but displays a preview of the window as well as its icon (Present in Windows Vista and above, with DWM enabled). It also makes use of Alt-Shift-Tab by moving backwards through the displayed programs, and it is possible to activate a Windows Flip 3D alternative using the Windows key and Tab. GNOME The Metacity window manager has similar functionality to versions of Windows released before Vista, but it only displays the outline of the currently selected window on the screen. Windows, on the other hand shows the whole selected window, which helps the user to pick the correct window from multiple windows with a similar title or icon. == History ==

The key combination to switch between windows has been present in all versions of Windows since Windows 1.0. Originally, the combination was similar to the combination (which also switched windows), but redrew each window immediately on each stroke, while brought the windows to the top but did not redraw them until the Alt key was released. The feature evolved in Windows 3.1, when the first visual switcher was introduced as the 'Fast "Alt+TAB" Switching' checkbox in the Desktop control panel applet, internally known as "CoolSwitch". However, this treatment only showed the currently selected window, not giving the user a hint of what will happen with each subsequent press of the key. The current “strip” version of switching that shows all the apps in one row, was first introduced in Windows 95. == Inconsistency ==

An example of a program that violates the expectation that pressing one time will switch to the previous application is Adobe Reader 7.0.x. Like newer versions of Microsoft Word it attempts to give a separate icon in the task menu to each MDI document. However, unlike Word, it brings two items to the front of the list whenever a document is selected using : first an icon representing the main Reader window and then an icon for the individual document. While in Adobe Reader, pressing one time selects the second item in the list, which is the icon for the PDF document. Adobe Reader remains the current task when is released. Thus it is demonstrated that the correct operation of , like some other aspects of the Windows environment such as the Clipboard chain, depends on individual applications being written correctly. == See also ==