Unable to switch to specific window.

r2evans · February 26, 2025, 3:46pm

There is a window that BTT will not allow me to switch to. I asked the community for help two months ago, I'm presuming that the lack of response may be due to this being a bug. The rest of this bug report is snipped from that question, repeating here so you don't have to switch back and forth.

Similar to Launch Application, or cycle windows if active - #2 by Andreas_Hegenberg, I'm trying to cycle between active windows for a given application. The link suggests hard-coding per-shortcut which is fine, but one of the windows I want to cycle through does not register as a regular (?) application.

Notably, if I run the following applescript (adapted from here) to get all of the current windows:

tell application "System Events" to get every window of ¬
	(every process whose background only is false)

among the output I get

{
  {window "Quartz 2 [*]" of application process "R" of application "System Events"},
  {window "BetterTouchTool Configuration" of application process "BetterTouchTool" of application "System Events"}
}

I have set a trigger on the keyboard shortcut option 2 with an action of "Activate Specific Window". With an app name of .*BetterTouchTool.*, it works fine. If I change the app name to .*R.* or .*Quartz.*, nothing happens. (Similarly, "window title" does not work.)

("R" is a programming language, and this one window is a graphics canvas for plots. The R app itself is a terminal/tty app being run inside of emacs, completely separate from the plot window.)

How can I switch between not-really-an-app windows?

In the end, I'd like to (a) cycle between active windows, and perhaps (b) remember the previous window of that app that was selected (perhaps the OS will do this for me?). This is all meant to mimic my muscle-memory of windows' Win-2 (which selects and cycles between windows of the second app on the taskbar). (Please don't hate me for trying to map my windows shortcuts to mac. I'm a very keyboard-centric programmer and would prefer to keep my "efficiencies" close to intact.)

Device information:

Type of Mac: MBP M4
macOS version: 15.3.1
BetterTouchTool version: 5.232 (updated since the original question)

Andreas_Hegenberg · March 17, 2025, 4:30pm

Unfortunately this might not be possible with BTT at the moment - for performance reasons BTT ignores non-standard windows for this action.

Could you post the output of the "Visible Windows Viewer" that is included with BTT? (You can either access it via a predefined action, e.g. by assigning it to a shortcut, or via "Advanced Trigger Conditions")

r2evans · March 17, 2025, 4:56pm

Thank you, I understand the complexity. I hope this provides a hint that it may be possible somehow.

BetterTouchTool - BetterTouchTool - 25
Control Center - WiFi - 25
Microsoft Teams - Item-0 - 25
Duet - Item-1 - 25
Parallels Toolbox - /Applications/Parallels Toolbox.app - 25
Docker Desktop - Item-0 - 25
LinearMouse - Item-0 - 25
MuteMe-Client - Item-0 - 25
Parallels Desktop - Item-1 - 25
Strongbox - Item-0 - 25
SystemUIServer - TimeMachineMenuExtra.TMMenuExtraHost - 25
Spotlight - Item-0 - 25
Nextcloud - Item-0 - 25
Control Center - NowPlaying - 25
Amphetamine - Amphetamine - 25
Stats - CombinedModules - 25
Control Center - Battery - 25
Control Center - BentoBox - 25
SystemUIServer - Siri - 25
Control Center - Clock - 25
Window Server - Menubar - 24
Dock - Dock - 20
BetterTouchTool -  - 3
BetterTouchTool - Visible Windows Inspector - 3
BetterTouchTool - For All Apps - Keyboard Shortcuts - 0
Firefox - Unable to switch to specific window. - Bugs or Unexpected Behavior - BetterTouchTool Community - 0
Betterbird - [BetterTouchTool Community] [Bugs or Unexpected Behavior] Unable to switch to specific window. - 0
Emacs - *R:2:fordprocess* - 0
R - Quartz 2 [*] - 0
‎R - Quartz 2 [*] - 0
Duet -  - 0
Plexamp - Plexamp - 0
Parallels Desktop - Control Center - 0

Thanks!

Andreas_Hegenberg · March 21, 2025, 10:55pm

Sorry for the delay. Ah now I understand, the window has an actual * in it's name? I think that might break BTT's searching alogrithm.

Can you try to enter this in BTT? (escape the *)

Quartz 2 \\[\\*\\]

r2evans · March 22, 2025, 12:41am

Thanks for the suggestion. Interpreting "You can use Regex or wildcards" to help with that, I had tried Quartz* in either of the Window Title and App Name. I hadn't thought of the need to escape the literal asterisk, thinking that it would be consumed by the wildcard *, is that true?

The number "2" is actually not fixed, but even assuming it is, I tried Quarter 2 \\[\\*\\] (with Quartz 2 [*] windows present) and it does not work.

Is there a way to quantify why "type" of window it is to confirm it's a "non-standard window"?

(Side note: I'm looking around to confirm my assumptions of regex and wildcards, and I notice that your BetterTouchTool page most recent two entries are listed as 2024, despite being above (after) some 2025 entries. Typo, just a heads up.)