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Alfred vs Global Hotkeys for switching frequently used apps


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To switch apps I mostly use Alfred to type in the first few chars of an apps name and every now and then I'll Alt-Tab. I switch between Sublime, Postbox, Chrome and Terminal at least a hundred times per day and I realize my method is pretty expensive (at least 4 keystrokes). Obviously assigning a global hotkey would be the most efficient but I already have problems with local and global shortcuts clashing. What do you more experienced users do (Im new to osx from Ubuntu) to switch apps as quickly as possible, am I missing anything?

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Can I add to Tyler's request for how to go about doing this.  I can't even find third party apps that will allow that.

 

 

You can use PCKeyboardHack to change caps lock to another key like F19, and then add something like this to private.xml in KeyRemap4MacBook:
 
<autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F19, KeyCode::COMMAND_L, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L | ModifierFlag::OPTION_L | ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L | ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L</autogen>
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A warning though, I experienced some system instability when running both PC Keyboard Hack and KeyRemap4Macbook. Kernel panics, etc. Couldn't ever track down the actual cause, but they have disappeared since I uninstalled both of them. YMMV. 

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I use the following hotkey combinations and rarely run into any conflicts.

 

⌃ + ⇧ + key — Launch Application (e.g. ⌃ + ⇧ + T to launch TextEdit)

⌃ + ⌥ + key — Open Folder (e.g. ⌃ + ⌥ + C to open Clients folder)

⌥ + ⇧ + key — Open Website (e.g. ⌥ + ⇧ + L to open LinkedIn website)

⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + key — System Action (e.g. ⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + ⌦ to empty trash)

⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + key — Web Search (e.g. ⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + G to search Google)

 

double-tap ⌘  — Show Clipboard history

double-tap ⌃  — Show Documents folder

double-tap ⌥ — Show Desktop folder (edit)

 

I just posted a screencast/video that talks about this in more detail: http://technicallysimple.com/screencasts/alfred-2-hotkeys/

Edited by timstringer
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