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kdmcmullan

Make Alt-Tab behaviour consistent with other applications

Status: New

 

I started using LabVIEW when it was at version 6 and have used all the interim versions. I have always found the implementation of the Alt-Tab keystroke to be irritatingly inconsistent with other Windows applications.

 

If we have multiple LabVIEW wnidows open, for example, Alt-Tabbing to one of them means I have Alt-Tab through ALL of them to get to the first non-LabVIEW window. This is a real menace. If we have, for example, 8 LabVIEW windows open and the Calculator, we just want to Alt-Tab between LabVIEW and Calculator: we have to tab 8 times to get to the calculator but once will get us back to LabVIEW.

 

This makes little sense, since Ctrl-Tab has historically been for tabbing between multiple instances of the same application. Alt-Tab should be reserved for tabbing between applications.

 

By contrast, if we have multiple Microsoft Word documents open, they are mixed in with the other applications on the Alt-Tab popup, so if there's one which hasn't been topmost for a long time, it gets shoved to its rightful place at the end of the list.

 

Looks like this has been a hot topic for a while. Still with no concusion. Does this exclude it from the product ideas forum?

 

Why not make Alt-Tab behave the same way as all other Windows applications, since we'll always have the Ctrl-Tab to toggle between those self-important LabVIEW windows?

 

9 Comments
jmorris
Active Participant

I too find this highly irritating, as it basically disables Alt-Tabbing away from LabVIEW for me.  Seems like unnecessary slowing down of the workflow.

elset191
Active Participant

In the mean time, use alt+shift+tab

--
Tim Elsey
Certified LabVIEW Architect
kdmcmullan
Member

@elset191 wrote:

In the mean time, use alt+shift+tab

 


 

This is a good tip, but I'd be keen to ensure that this is not seen as a solution.

 

Rather, it's a temporary workaround to the long running problem of the unintuitive default behaviour of LabVIEW. The neccesity for, and use of a workaround is equally unintuitive.

saratoga
Member

YES

 

The way labview breaks Windows task switching has consistently been one of the most irrating things about it.

gjain
Member

I agree, this problem really needs to be addressed by NI.  It's extremely counter-productive.  A quick Google search shows this has been a problem for years already.

 

 

W.Muhammad
NI Employee (retired)

 I fully endorse this idea.Infact, some customers are eagerly willing to have implementation of Alt+ Tab for Labview windows same as other applications(words, adobe etc) have.

David_L
Active Participant

Here's a fun observation.  I briefly dabbled in Windows 8 for my dev computer.  And while many features of Win8 I didn't like, forcing me back to Win7, I did notice that LabVIEW running on Windows 8 does not have this odd Alt-Tab functionality.  I'm not sure why this is, but perhaps it can be studied/observed/disected to figure out how to fix it in every OS.

BPerlman
Member

YES!!!

 

This drives me absolutely crazy when working in LabVIEW.

kstar
Member

Yes, this is indeed very counter-productive.