Window Switcher + App Switcher

Tired of juggling multiple windows and apps on Windows? Window Switcher and App Switcher are here to help. These two utilities add powerful shortcuts found in most operating systems (Ubuntu, macOS, etc.), but that are sorely missing from Windows.

Use Window Switcher to quickly flip between windows of the same app, and App Switcher to navigate between different apps.

Each utility is lightning fast, compliments each other, and integrates smoothly with the look and feel of Windows.

Features

Window Switcher

• Alt+` to switch between windows of the same application
• Shift to cycle in reverse
• Escape to cancel
• ✨ Uses the native Windows window switching UI ✨
  • This means it looks and behaves exactly like the native window switcher
  • It will continue to match the Windows theme even if Microsoft overhauls their UI style

Application Switcher

• Win+Tab to switch between applications
  • Note: this replaces the Task View feature
• Shift to cycle in reverse
• Escape to cancel
• Custom UI, designed to match the Windows 11 theme
  • Includes acrylic blur-behind effect
  • Skinnable by editing images in the resources folder

Installation

Window Switcher

1. Install AutoHotkey v2
2. Download window-switcher.ahk
3. Set window-switcher.ahk to run on startup (see below)

Application Switcher

1. Install AutoHotkey v2
2. Download app-switcher.ahk and GuiEnhancerKit.ahk and the resources folder. The easiest way is to download the entire repository as a zip file.
3. Set app-switcher.ahk to run on startup (see below)

Running on Startup

• To run at startup with administrator privileges:
  • Place the script somewhere permanent, since moving or renaming it will break the startup action.
    • In the case of the app switcher, the resources folder must be in the same directory as the script.
  • Open Task Scheduler
  • Action > Create Task...
  • Check "Run with highest privileges" in "Security options" in General tab
  • In Triggers tab, click "New..." and set the type to "At log on"
  • For the Action, you can browse for the script.

Known Issues

Window Switcher

• Windows are hidden from the task bar as well, which can be distracting, especially with taskbar button labels enabled, as it animates the taskbar buttons collapsing and expanding.
  • ❌ I don't know of any way to hide windows from the task switcher without hiding them from the taskbar.
• Some windows are not hidden from the task switcher, such as the Task Manager, due to permission errors.
  • 🛡️✅ Running as administrator fixes this.
• UWP windows, such as Windows's Settings app, are not filtered out either.
  • ❌ They don't play well with any of the methods I've tried (WinHide, WinSetExStyle, ITaskbarList.DeleteTab).

Application Switcher

• 🎨 The blur-behind effect doesn't always work. (Usually it works when triggering the app switcher a second time.)
• ⿻ Apps are not distinguished by their shortcut, so for instance, PWAs installed with Chrome will be lumped in with "Google Chrome".
• 🙈 UWP apps are not shown in the app switcher.
  • This is likely easier to solve than the issue with the window switcher, but Microsoft doesn't make it easy! They frankly dropped the ball when it comes to compatibility when introducing UWP apps.
• Can sometimes get an error Error: Gui has no window. at Pic := AppSwitcher.FocusedCtrl
  • ❓ I don't know what caused this or if it's still a problem. If you run into this or any other issues, please let me know.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.txt file for details.

TODO

I want to simplify the installation process, and the best way to do that is to compile the scripts into executables.

The window switcher works fine, but when compiling the app switcher, many issues showed up.

It's unfortunate, since the app switcher is the one that has dependencies that I want to bundle to simplify installation.

• Get app switcher working when compiled into app-switcher.exe
  • Figure out how to embed the resources
    • FileInstall is a nice built in mechanism for this.
    • (Might want to support overriding resources by placing them in the same directory as the executable (or in a subdirectory alongside it), or via a config file...)
  • Fix app crashing, usually silently but occasionally showing an "critical error" message with very little information
    • Narrowed it down to a memory issue with wsprintf where it would write a null terminator past the end of the buffer
  • 🙈 Not all apps are shown (e.g. Chrome, Firefox, and VS Code are missing)
    • Apparently WM_GETICON is failing when compiled (returning 0)
      • I could work around this by allowing apps to be shown without icons, but that's pretty ugly
      • I could also try to get the icon from the executable, but that's a bit more work
      • Ideally I want to get the icon from the shortcut that launched the app, but that's even more work. The taskbar does it, so it's possible.
        • Is it possible to determine if another process/window was started using a shortcut?

          • Yes, but not easily.

  • Script is sending Tab to itself recursively, triggering a warning message about many hotkeys being triggered in a period short time
    • Do hotkeys work differently when compiled?? Is it maybe designed to avoid responding to hotkeys originating from AutoHotkey.exe?
  • "Error: Gui has no window."
    • Does multithreading work differently when compiled??
    • Actually, this might be related to the Tab hotkey issue. That could explain why it's getting what appears like a timing issue. (Although I don't know for sure it's a timing issue.)
    • I might have a fix for this (3414d66940d5c43ef88884ae5298457422800721)
• Create GitHub release
• Simplify installation instructions
• Customize tray icon for app switcher (window switcher already has an appropriate icon from shell32.dll, although it could be improved)

Development

• The script will automatically reload if you press Ctrl+S on a window with the script's name in the title
• The VS Code extension for AutoHotkey v2 provides auto-formatting among many other features