How are you switching windows in OS X?

I've been a Mac user for 3 years now but there is a thing that really annoys me and that I didn't find a solution for: the window switching (keyboard Command-Tab to change application or Command-` to change the document of the active application).

Usually I've several browser windows, Textmate, Terminal, Mail, etc, etc. Using exposé I need to check every little window snapshot (I think exposé is great to work with images and only with images). Using Command-Tab & Command-backtick creates weird situations (i.e. you are working with Textmate and need to check some doc in a web browser that you left open just for that purpose. You need Command-Tab, locate the application, then Command-`, but if you happen to be in a web page with the cursor in an input text you will be writing on it and not switching anymore)

Lately I discovered that you can Command-Tab and then press the down cursor key to get an exposé for the selected application. This somehow is a patch for the problem, but not a real solution.

Before using some kind of utility to make Command-Tab work like windows, I wonder if I'm doing something wrong. After all, this is OS X, Apple is the king of UI, isn't it? The user interface seems to be designed for Photoshop & similar users.

How do you work with multiple windows in OSX? Am I missing anything?

Best regards,

I think the solution is to train to use Expose more often. Alternatively, there’s Witch which implements Window’ Alt+Tab-like switching. To be honest, though, I never use it although I have it installed. It is too cluttered for my taste (I have a lot of windows open).

I don’t really see why Expose should only be good for images. Also, Cmd+` should never write into a text field, even if the field has the focus. That sounds like a bug.

Some Exposé tips which might help you:

• If you have a newer keyboard with a dedicated Exposé key, hold Command and press it to show the desktop; control and press it to show application windows
• In Snow Leopard, click and hold on a Dock icon to show windows for that application
• In Exposé, press Tab to show only windows for each application in turn.
• Setting a hot corner for All Windows really made it easier for me to use it. It might for you, too. (I chose top-right.)

I find it odd that you say Exposé is only good for images. I can easily identify individual applications, web pages and often documents with it. It's only when there are multiple text documents of equal length, or multiple Terminal windows, that I might have to preview them individually. And even then, unless they have the same name I can just look at the title.

(By the way, have you tried Spaces? It's not my sort of thing, but you might like it.)