AutoHotkey Community

Your script works great and it is very useful.
As so many other followers I am trying to unlearn the bad habit of Alt-Tab

A little issue I faced with my attempts of using it.
It looks like you have done this intentionally but if I set SetTitleMatchMode to 2 (as in your script), then if a window title is completely included in some other window e.g.
First Window) Windows Explorer pointing to AutoHotKey folder and "Display full path in the title bar" is unchecked, all you see is AutoHotKey in the title bar (I prefer this setting).
Second Window) Internet Explorer pointing to AutoHotKey.com.
Then the window selection is quite unpredictable.
I have changed SetTitleMatchMode to 3 in my script. What is your opinion?

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Sandeep

I remember seeing an example on MSDN about how to replace the Alt-tab handler with something like this. I think rather than showing the alt-tab menu, it showed miniaturized versions of all the windows.

I don't think it would be easy to do with AutoHotkey now, but there is a plan to add screen-to-clipboard capturing in the future. Perhaps this can be expanded to include window-to-clipboard.

It really seems pretty similar to iswitchw according to the description. I didn't know about Slickswitch, I got the idea from Emacs. I've been using incremental buffer switching in it for years and it has this feature since 1996.

Maybe you should give my naive Expose implementation a try. It's only a toy, but fun.

I can't try it, since I'm not on Windows at the moment, but I think title match mode affects only the WinGet command in the script which should collect all visible Windows on the screen. How does your change affect the collection of visible windows?

Besides so many other windowing commands, it does affect WinActivate also!

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Sandeep

Yes, of course. I should have been a bit more clear.

I meant that title match mode should affect only WinGet in the script beside WinActivate. And if collecting the visible windows works fine with title match mode set to 3 then this is the way to go.

New release.

Changes:

• Using exact title match setting to avoid faulty activation when a window's title contains the title of an other window.
  Thanks Sandeep!
• Added option for digit shortcuts if there are ten or less windows in the list.
  Thanks to Guest for the suggestion.

Edit: See the latest version of the script in the first post.

A few improvements:

• The switcher window is always on top. The keyboard focus is grabbed when the switcher is activated and it can be confusing that the keyboard seemingly does not work when the switcher window is behind other windows.
• GUI close event is handled to avoid leaving the keyboard grabbed when the switcher is closed with the mouse.
• Added first letter match mode where the typed search string must match the first letter of words in the window title (only alphanumeric characters are taken into account)
  
  For example, the search string "ad" matches both of these titles:
  
  AutoHotkey - Documentation
  Anne's Diary
  
  Thanks to Soapspoon for the idea.
  
• Added option for activating the currently selected window in the background, so that the user can see which window will be activated. The background activation can be immediate or delayed (by default 300 ms).

Edit: See the latest version of the script in the first post.

Nice improvements. I'll be sure to use the latest version when posting this on the web site.

After attempting to make my own stuff with AHK, I'm just unbelievably impressed with this script. I can't believe you added incremental searching! I don't really understand HOW the code works, but I'll be poring over it to learn from you.

Very nice. Thanks once again, this rocks!

If you like learning by example, Soapspoon, you might also want to check out the Script Showcase. It has many excellent scripts that are tried and true, and very helpful in learning more about AHK. Some of the scripts are pretty darn useful, too! Also, browsing old forum topics is a good way to learn too, following the development/support process and finding out how people make scripts and fix bugs, etc. Almost every technique I use has either been learned on the forum here, or from the amazingly helpful Command Reference.

Really cool script. I also sometimes hit accidently the capslock, so I don't like the script on this key.

Tekl

There are three conditions the default activation key should meet:

• It should be a single key, not a key combination. Switching between windows is one of the most frequent operations, so the activation of the switcher should be as quick and efficient as possible.
• It should be a key which can be found on all kinds of keyboards (101 key, laptop, etc.)
• It should be a key which is not often used for its original purpose, so it's only a minor inconvenience if its binding is changed.

CapsLock meets the above conditions: it's a big, easy to hit key and I don't know too many people who use it for its original purpose. Typing longer strings of uppercase characters is rarely needed in everyday computing.

That's why I chose CapsLock which I think is suitable for most of the users. Those who don't like it are free to change it to anything else in their copy of the script.

This update fixes the remaining issues. I hope I haven't introduced too many new ones.

• Windows are activated by id, not by title. No more messing with title match mode, no more problems with windows having the same title, etc.
• Windows with pipe (|) character are handled properly. The pipe characters are simply replaced with dash (-) characters. It causes no problems, since windows are not activated by title anymore.
• If activation in background is enabled the selected window is not activated when the switcher is invoked. Sometimes it was confusing when the active window was changed right after the switcher window appeared.

Edit: See the latest version of the script in the first post.