Front and Center 1.0.1
In classic, when you click on a window that belongs to an application that’s not currently active, all the windows that belong to that application come to the front. In Mac OS X (and macOS), only the window that you click comes to the front.
[…]
Sadly, macOS Catalina’s lack of support for 32-bit apps finally killed the last of the apps that implemented this feature. I was alone in a cold, barren world where I had to click on a Dock icon to switch to an app and bring all its windows to the front.
His Front and Center app lets you choose the classic behavior or, as I prefer, choose the modern behavior and selectively override it by holding down the Shift key when you do want all the windows. There are ways to do this without the app:
- Click the Dock icon.
- Assign a keyboard shortcut to Bring All to Front and press it after activating the window.
- Press Command-Tab, then Left Arrow after activating the window.
But a modified click is more elegant.
Gus knew of a deprecated API that does the process-switching much more efficiently, that doesn’t exhibit the same bug, and makes the code much simpler. Given that the impetus of writing the app was to make the 32-bit to 64-bit transition cleanly, I wasn’t a fan of using an API that had been deprecated in OS X 10.9, but it works well.
Carbon for the win. I, too, have had issues with the newer process APIs.
Previously:
Update (2020-01-10): John Gruber:
So why Shift-click? There really wasn’t any choice — the other single modifier keys are all spoken for by the system.
See also: Accidental Tech Podcast.
3 Comments RSS · Twitter
Don't get me started on the new process APIs. NSRunningApplication is buggy as all getout.
Adam Engst actually put me on to a solution to the “bring all windows to the front” which he was using with Keyboard Maestro but only for the Finder - basically, just create a macro that triggers when the Finder comes to the front and does a Bring Application Windows to Front action. Personally I always feel a Mac is broken when it doesn't have this macro, but I don't mind the mixed windows for other applications, just the Finder.
If using the cmd-tab method, I find it easier to press cmd-tab, then while keeping the cmd key pressed, holding down shift and pressing tab again. This can all be done with one hand, and very quickly.
I typically press cmd-tab twice in a row quickly.
Ironically, here is another thing I'd like: a way to cmd-tab to an app and bring only the main/key window to the front. When working on 2 apps, with one window for each app, the other windows get in the way when switching using cmd-tab (the workaround is to click on the windows instead...).
