Switch between windows of active app

[KeyserSozeZeg]

Hi,

For a lot of apps, I have set up different keyboard shortcuts to open the relevant app. With this, I was able to improve my productivity, so the app has been a gamechanger for me, thanks.

To take my productivity to the next level, what I also would like to achieve is, to switch between the windows of a certain application (by using the same keyboard shortcut as for opening the relevant app). I have tried to achieve this (e.g. for MS Excel) via the below setup:

This works fine in 80% of the cases and I am able to do an Alt+Tab-esque switching between the different windows of MS Excel. But in certain cases, the window of another app (most notably Finder) gets opened in parallel to MS Excel:

This is the case e.g. when I do my keyboard shortcut from the Desktop, where by default the active app in MacOS is changed to Finder:

I assume the problem is that when I press the assigned keyboard shortcut, the active window is still Finder and that is the app, for which the "Move Focus to Next Window of Active Application" command gets executed. What I find interesting is that this problem is not happening between apps, where I have the window switching enabled (e.g. between MS Excel and Mail).

I have also tried to apply a delay for the "Move Focus to Next Window of Active Application" command, but I got the same results.

Is there a better way to achieve my requirement and to avoid the unwanted opening of Finder?

Thanks in advance.

[zenangst]

Hey @KeyserSozeZeg, if I understand your setup correctly, you want command-fn-Q to go to Excel (when it is not the frontmost application), and if it is, you want it to cycle between open Excel windows.
This is exactly the kind of behavior I've set up myself for Xcode.

So here is how I've configured my setup.

Global shortcut

Group Shortcut

You create a new group and assign an application to it.

Then you add the same keybinding but have it do a different action when the application is frontmost.

Now, the same keybinding will do different things depending on which application is open. Group/scoped workflows take precedence over global ones.

I hope this helps you out and resolves your issue. Thanks a bunch for all the kind words and support! :)

[KeyserSozeZeg]

Hi @zenangst ,

Your solution works exactly how I wanted it.

Thanks a lot and have a great day.

[KeyserSozeZeg]

Hi @zenangst ,

With a dedicated keyboard shortcut, I would like to open and switch between active windows of the "Citrix Viewer" app.

The problem is that Citrix Viewer is an app which is only available via the Application Support folder of Citrix and therefore it cannot be chosen as an application from the dropdown list in Keyboard Cowboy:

Due to this, I cannot create a group specific to Citrix Viewer and the solution you described above for MS Excel does not work for Citrix Viewer.

Do you have an idea how to achieve my requirement for apps, which are not avaialable in the Applications folder, but only from the Applications Support folder?

Thank you in advance.

[zenangst]

Hey @KeyserSozeZeg

Have you tried adding the directory in settings?

You can add additional application search paths for apps that aren't included in the standard search paths.

[KeyserSozeZeg]

Hi @zenangst

Thanks for the hint.

Based on that, I have adjusted my settings and now I can pick Citrix Viewer as app. Unfortunately with that, it still does not work as expected. I think the reason for that is, that if multiple Citrix environments had been opened with Citrix Viewer, then I have multiple instances for the Citrix Viewer:

For other apps (e.g. MS Excel) when I have multiple instances open, these are treated like the app was opened once with two separate windows:

Due to this, the "Move focus to next window of active application" command does not switch to the other instance of Citrix Viewer.

Is there a way to switch between the instances of Citrix Viewer?

Thanks in advance.