Gala Alt Tab Plus

September 3, 2021 · View on GitHub

Replace the default alt-tab behavior of gala/elementary os with a simpler UI inspired by the Gnome switcher and MacOS.

Example of application switcher

:warning: If you are looking for an Elementary 6 Odin compatible version check out small-tech/catts. :warning:

Build Requirements

Make sure you apt install all of the above requirements before trying to build.

build from sources:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

# Restart gala
sudo gala --replace &

Modifying the primary gala instance can result in a broken desktop that requires a restart to fix. To avoid this, you should use xephyr:

sudo apt install xserver-xephyr
# Run the test script starts up xephyr, calculator and xterm
./test.sh

With xephyr active you can give it focus with ctrl-shift and test out the new alt-tab behavior.

Once you're done testing you can remove the plugin with.

./cleanup.sh

Elementary ships with Alt + Shift bound 'switch layouts'. Make sure you go into 'Settings > Keyboard > Layout' and remove/reassign this keybinding.