I can’t understand the reasoning behind Most-Recent-Order (how Windows sorts windows when switching via Alt+Tab) when used for tab/window/document/task switching. The way Firefox does tab switching (tabs stay in a consistent order, Ctrl+Tab/Ctrl+Shift+Tab for moving to the next/previous tab) seems much more natural than switching in chronological order.
When there are more than ~5 tabs or windows, I quickly forget the chronological order in which they were opened. So the sequence of switching between them becomes difficult to predict. Even if I remember which tab was active before the current one, and which one was active prior to that, it just takes a lot of key strokes to switch to these. More than if I could simply use direct order as in Firefox or Chrome.
- Is there any rational reason to use MRO in an application apart from backward compatibility (for users accustomed to the old hotkeys and usage patterns)?
- Why is it still used in Windows for Alt+Tab switching between applications?
It’s used because often you’re switching between two applications so it’s a simple Alt+Tab to switch back and forth. If it didn’t use a most recently used order it could be mulitple keypresses to switch back and forth between the two apps I’m interested in at the moment.
Similarly, in an IDE, I could be switching back and forth between two files and don’t want to hit Ctrl+Tab lots of times to keep making the same switch.