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Submission details

15 +20/-5 votes

Keyboard switching between Finder windows while performing drag-and-drop

Submitted by tomerb on August 31, 2008 to Bug, Usability

Start dragging a file. Using CMD-tab you can easily switch between applications and drop it wherever you want.
However, you can't use CMD-` to switch between Finder windows while dragging!
This seems to be a bug. Try dragging text outside of Safari into different Finder windows, and suddenly CMD-` works!

Fix the bug!

High

High

Not fixed

Discussion (6 comments)

abitgone wrote on September 1, 2008, 9:56am

Or just use Exposé to switch between Finder windows instead.

-1.

Hansii wrote on September 1, 2008, 9:00pm

What is CMD-`supposed to do, I can't get it to work

jasper wrote on September 1, 2008, 9:27pm

You are pointing at exactly the solution. Command Tab launches the Application Switcher - not the Window Switcher, wich we call Exposé. Stop living in Windows, start living in Mac.

tomerb wrote on September 1, 2008, 10:29pm

Thanks for your comments, but this behavior is nonetheless a bug.
Using Exposé is a good idea though.

vandlism wrote on September 3, 2008, 9:27am

Use Expose, less keystrokes, and you can set screen corners to make drag and drop easier.

jay314 wrote on December 29, 2008, 9:13am

Using Expose works, but this should still be considered a bug. CMD + ` cycles through Finder windows.. but not while you are dragging a file? That seems inconsistent from a user perspective. My mouse is being used for the drag operation, so that is exactly the time when I will want to use the keyboard for the window selecting operation.

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