Alt-Tab - Task Switcher

Suppose you are working with multiple tasks at a time and you want to switch between tasks without using the mouse. Today let us see how to do this with a keyboard shortcut.

Alt-Tab is the keyboard shortcut known as Task Switcher for switching between top-level windows without using the mouse. Alt-Tab can switch to any running program. The list of tasks is kept in an order with the most recently used tasks at the front.

How to do it? First press the Alt key and hold down. While Alt is down, press and release the Tab repeatedly, to move the cursor through a list of tasks. A special task selection window appears the first time Tab is pressed with Alt down. When the Alt key is released, the task selection window closes and switches to the selected task.

The Alt-Tab behavior is defined by a set of rules, of which some important ones are stated below.

• The task list appears as soon as Tab is pressed with Alt down, whenever there is more than one task.
• The task list remains open until Alt is released.
• Tab moves the cursor forward in the list; Shift-Tab moves it backward.
• Esc while Alt is still down, aborts the action.
• The windows are listed by their "Z-order".
• Switching to a window moves it to the top of the Z-order sequence.
• When the Alt-Tab window is not in use, Alt-Esc lowers a window, placing it at the bottom of the Z-order sequence. This sends it to the end of the list.
  
• Minimizing a window also sends it to the end of the list , with the exception of some applications like Outlook.