Dual monitor - keyboard shortcut to switch between two monitors active window 1

[grofaty]

Hi,
using Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1. I have two monitors. On primary monitor I have plenty of programs displayed and on second monitor plenty of programs displayed.
But on my first monitor (beside plenty of programs) I have Command Prompt program and on second monitor (beside plenty of programs) I have text editor.

I am typing commands in my first monitor and now I click with mouse to second monitor text editor and type something there and then click with mouse to my first editor cmd window. I would like to have a keyboard shortcut for this. So is there a keyboard shortcut to switch from primary monitor active window to secondary monitor active windows?

P.S. I don't want to use CTRL+TAB, because I have plenty of programs opened on both monitors and using this keyboard shortcut is not efficient.
Thanks

 

[guitarzan]

By active window, I think you mean which application currently has the "focus". And only one application can have the focus at a time. If you are typing in one application in Monitor 1, that is the only application with focus. There is no way to tell windows "okay, now I want to type in the window that has the focus in Monitor 2", because no other programs have the focus.

When you say CTRL-TAB, I assume you meant ALT-TAB or Windows-TAB... And I agree these can be clunky at times with many programs open. Maybe there is a program out there where you can assign a keyboard combination to automate switching to a certain application?

Why not just click on the applications icon in the Taskbar?

 

[Andrzejek]

ALT-TAB will do it for you.
I know, when you have a lot of windows open, ALT-TAB will give you a long list of icons to choose from. But did you notice that those icons are re-arranged when you switch between applications? And the most recent windows are 'closer' to ALT-TAB to than the once you used a long time ago?

So if you type in cmd and then click on text editor, quick ALT-TAB gets you back to cmd. And quick ALT-TAB gets you back to text editor.

Have fun.

---- Andy

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

 

[DSummZZZ]

Keep in mind that along with ALT-TAB or Windows-TAB, you can also add the Shift key to 'reverse' switch windows. So if those are the only two you are currently switching between you don't have to tab through them all.
Also when ALT- or Windows- TABbing through windows, while they're all displayed on the screen, you can click on the window you want to switch to.


-Dave Summers-

Even more Fox stuff at:

http://www.dave-summers.net/foxprolinks.htm

 

[grofaty]

Sorry, I mistyped CTRL+TAB, but I thought ALT+TAB.

Hmmm, my case is even little bit more complicated, but I thought to write on this forum simplified version of my problem to make it more simple... Let me describe in little bit more detail.

Because default Windows 7 is just very limited about window management to my taste I have installed several tools:
1. VirtuaWin (program to have multiple desktops) - so I can have mulitple instances of my two dual monitor and I can switch between them with keyboard shortcuts (also moving programs between them). So I can have e.g. web browsing and mail on one desktop, text editor and cmd on another desktop etc.
2. VistaSwitcher to have better task management swithing - I use the setting "Show task only to the active monitor" - so switching with ALT+TAB I only see programs from current active monitor!!! This is intentional, because I want to quickly switch between tasks only on single monitor - because programs with the same group are on single monitor.
3. DualMonitor - tool to have taskbar on second monitor. This tool only shows programs in taskbar that are currently active on each of the monitor. So if program is displayed on
primary monitor task bar icon is only on primary monitor, if program is displayed on second monitor then task icon is displayed on on second monitor task bar.

Because of my work-flow I am trying to have multiple monitors, multiple desktops, multiple taskbar etc. AND! I would like to manage all this operations with keyboard shortcuts. I can move program's active windows to second monitor to second desktop etc with keyboard shortcuts, but I have not found out a good solution to just move focus of my primary monitor active window to second monitor. For this only reason I have to use my mouse which is just very annoying. I like to keep my fingers on keyboard and any disturbtion to mouse is just waste of time and my work-flow.

And idea how to move focus to second monitor with keyboard shortcuts?

 

[grofaty]

I have found out a solution (not the perfect one, but very good one for my day to day workflow):

1. Download AutoHotKey program from

http://ahkscript.org/

2. In program's script type in the following commands:

; Comment: Left mouse click on the location of the middle of the first screen with <ALT>+<Left>
!Left::
CoordMode, Mouse, Screen
Click 800, 10
return

; Comment: Left mouse click on the location of the middle of the second screen with <ALT>+<Right>
!Right::
CoordMode, Mouse, Screen
Click 2500, 10
return

3. Reload AutoHotKey script.

What does the script do? When pressing ALT+Left_key it makes the MOUSE click on the location of the middle of the top left screen. And vise-versa for ALT+Right_key to click on top position of right screen. If both windows on both screen are maximized (in almost all of the time in my case) this key combination is just a switch between two monitor programs.

p.s. my screen resolution is 1680 x 1050 for both monitors. Actual mouse location can be monitored by "windows spy" program by right clicking Autohotkey icon from system tray.
Hope this helps someone out there.

 

[TonHu]

A specific Window should be activated by finding it either by Window-Title (caption) or Window-Class, not by clicking the mouse somewhere in a rather random location. What if another application-window is hiding that specific pixel from view?

 

[grofaty]

@TonHU, I understand what you mean, but as I have written above it is not a perfect solution. This is not a "random location", but exact location of middle of the title bar in the left or right monitor. So if in both monitors programs are maximized (in 99% of all time in my case) then this means switching between exactly two programs between dual monitor screens that I like.

If there would be a reference by Window-Title or Window-Class then I would need keyboard shortcut for each of program combination. But in my case I have several! programs, but in almost all of the cases (99%) I have one program maximized on first monitor screen and one program maximized on second monitor screen. I need to switch between them. For example I have an text editor on one screen, type in commands in multiple lines and then switch (with this keyboard shortcuts) to second monitor screen where cmd window is located and execute the command entered from first monitor text editor. Then switch back. Then on second monitor by using ALT+TAB I witch to word processor (like I described above using VistaSwitche program to have only tasks listed by current active monitor) and paste the command. Then I need to switch back to first monitor etc etc etc.