Quote: "Not sure what you mean. I had dual monitors in Win7 and it was never an issue for me. Hold ALT when you tab to switch between other windows, not just the two recent."
That's the problem I'm trying to avoid. If I press alt+tab once, I expect to switch between the two most recent windows
on that monitor, not switch between the window on my left screen and the window on my right screen. That's entirely pointless because if I have 2 monitors, then by definition, the two windows that are focused on those two monitors are "active", are they not?
On linux I'm using the awesome-wm window manager, and the way it works there is:
win+shift+q - switch to screen 1
win+shift+w - switch to screen 2
win+k - switch to next active window
on that screen
win+j - switch to previous active window
on that screen
Consider the following two examples: I have two screens 1 and 2. On screen 1 I have firefox, on screen 2 I have my IDE and behind that I have gimp.
1) Let's say I'm actively working on code in my IDE, but I want to get to gimp. On Windows, I'd alt+tab, then, depending on whether I used firefox last or not, I'd either focus firefox accidentally (which is on the other monitor), or by some miracle focus gimp. This right here is the problem. I don't mentally keep track of which window I used last (and I doubt you do either), so it's always a gamble which window gets focused. I also don't want to spend time figuring out which icon corresponds to which window while holding alt, but unfortunately, on Windows, I have to, and this process can take about 3 seconds. On linux, I'd just press ctrl+k and that's it. Firefox is on another screen so it gets ignored.
2) Let's say I decide to google something. On windows, I'd move my mouse over to screen 1, click to focus the window, ctrl+t to open a new tab, search for something. Then I'd move my mouse back to my IDE, click to regain focus of my IDE and continue. On linux, I'd press win+shift+q to focus firefox, ctrl+t to open a new tab, search, then win+shift+w to switch back to my IDE. Note that during this entire process I don't need to use the mouse (well, apart from maybe having to click links in the browser).
Now, I can hear some of you screaming at your monitors going "Comet, shut up! You are nitpicking! Those extra seconds don't matter"
To you I say: They absolutely matter. I encourage you to do a little experiment: Track how many times you switch windows over 1 day (be this alt+tab or just clicking on another window). With me it's in the range of 200-300 times per day. I feel like getting to the correct window on Windows takes roughly 1.75 seconds (best case is 0.5, worst case 3, assuming the average). That means I waste 5.8 minutes of my life switching between windows each day. In awesome-wm, it's at most 1 second, which means I save 60 hours per year if I use linux.
All I'm saying is: Windows could be made a lot more efficient. It's those tiny things that annoy me, and they add up.
