Windows – How to show multiple windows of a single app with a keyboard shortcut

keyboardwindows

I frequently have more than one window open for a specific app. For example, I have my Thunderbird mail window, and then a new message is a separate window. When I command-tab through my apps (or use Expose to display all apps) it only shows the app, not the individual windows. If, for example, my new message ends up in the background, the only way I can get it back is to control-click on the Thunderbird dock icon and choose the window from the list. This is a pain when I'm working quickly and don't want to take my hands off the keyboard.

Is there any way I can get all open windows to show with a keyboard shortcut, rather than just the actual apps?

Best Answer

See "Expose". Activation keys are different on different laptops, so find the shortcuts under
System Preferences>Keyboard. On my laptop:

F9 shows all windows
F10 shows all windows for the active app
F11 shows the desktop

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Many applications like Terminal also have a menu item like Window > Cycle Through Windows. It stays assigned to ⌘` even if you change the shortcut in the Keyboard & Text Input preferences.

You could add a custom shortcut for Cycle Through Windows in the Application Shortcuts preferences, or disable it with defaults write -g NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add "Cycle Through Windows" nul.

You could also force TotalTerminal to use ⌘` by editing ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist directly.

<key>ToggleVisor</key>
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MacOS – How to focus on MacVim in terminal using keyboard shortcut

See this question for different ways to assign shortcuts to opening applications.

When I tried using Alfred to assign a keyboard shortcut for MacVim, pressing the shortcut did not always open a new window. You could try using a script like this though:

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Or try just using activate app "MacVim" or adding different arguments to open -a MacVim.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MacOS – Changing keyboard shortcut for cycling through windows? (Lion)

MacOS – How to focus on MacVim in terminal using keyboard shortcut

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