You must be familiar with the Alt+Tab feature in windows that allows you to switch between different open windows. Do you use it a lot?? Well if you do then you will love this. Even if you don't, give this a try. Instead of the simple Alt+Tab feature in windows, Mac provides a completely different switching option. It visually brings in focus all the open windows from where you can choose which one to switch to.
In this post i will show you how you can get this functionality in windows. Have a look below
In this post i will show you how you can get this functionality in windows. Have a look below
How to get mac Like behavior in windows
- First download this free software, Smallwindows(468kb)
- Once downloaded install it, installation is pretty simple and fast
- Once installed you will see the small windows icon in the taskabar, double click on it to launch the settings menu
- Now you will see three different options in the settings menu i.e Hot-zone, Hotkey Activation, Advanced features. Lets try to understand them one by one.
Hotkey Activation
In Hotkey activation you can assign shortcuts for three different tasks
- Miniature All - Bring to focus all open windows
- Miniature Realted - Bring to focus all related windows
- Show/Hide desktop - Show desktop or hide desktop
Now to set the shortcuts click on the button corresponding to the task you want to perform. Then you will see a windows like the one below:
Here you can either choose a key as a shortcut or a combination of a key with shift, alt, ctrl, windows key modifiers. I recommend you choose the 'alt' modifier and 'Q' key as the shortcut. Then click on OK. Now close the settings menu and press 'Alt' + 'Q'. And see for yourself. Now set shortcuts for other tasks too if you want
Hot-zones
Hot zones represent the four corners of your monitor. You can select what should happen when you move your mouse to any of the corner points. Just select the corresponding task from the drop down menu when you move to one of the corners. Notice below that i selected 'All' for the top left hot zone. This means that when i move my mouse to the top left corner all my open windows will come to focus.
Advanced features
Here you can set some advanced features like excluding windows based on the title, which i found pretty useless. So ignore it for now, you can play with it later on. Lastly there is an option to auto launch this application on windows startup. I would recommend to turn that on.
So this completes the setup of this awesome software. Now you can use the assigned shortcuts to navigate to different open windows faster and smarter. And don't forget the eye candy it provides. Hope you find it useful.
If you have any doubts or have something to share with others then you can do it by leaving a comment below.
Thanks for reading
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