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I know I could use AHK to bind keys to bring a predefined window into focus, but I'm looking for a utility that will allow me to assign shortcut keys on-the-fly to bring a specific window into focus.

Ideally:

enter image description here

Does anything like this exist?

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  • Well, you could write a little application in AutoHotkey to do this. ;)
    – iglvzx
    Jul 23, 2012 at 18:48
  • @iglvzx: I don't think AHK lets you add buttons to the caption bar of all windows.
    – josh3736
    Jul 23, 2012 at 19:14

2 Answers 2

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In Windows 7, the first 10 programs on your taskbar automatically have hotkeys assigned based on their position in the taskbar. Pressing Win + 1 will activate the first program on the task bar (or launch it, if it's not open). Win + 2 activates the second, and so on up to Win + 0 activating the 10th. The programs do not need to be pinned to the task bar for this to work, but programs that are pinned can be launched with those shortcuts in they are not open.

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    Unfortunately, this doesn't help when each app has several windows open. (You can press Win + n multiple times like an app-specific Alt+Tab, but that's not what I'm looking for.) I want one keystroke/combination to jump straight to a specific window.
    – josh3736
    Jul 23, 2012 at 18:39
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I made a tool exactly for that : https://hyperkeys.xureilab.com

You can set your own shortcut to pin then bring back a window. I personally use respectively SHIFT+ALT+A and ALT+A (azerty keyboard).

Note that on Windows 10, the OS unmaximize a window when you force it to the front via a third-party app. I didn't find a workaroung this yet. But full-screen apps stay full-screen.

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  • That is cool! However, pinning one window isn't exactly what I want. I want to bind arbitrary shortcuts to multiple windows at once -- eg win+s for a particular editor window, win+b for a particular browser window, etc. I did end up writing my own (barely functional) implementation of this that uses key chords: caps+k enters assignment mode, then whatever you press next is bound as the shortcut for the active window. Works well for me.
    – josh3736
    May 8, 2020 at 23:00
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    PS: In my implementation, I don't have the issue of windows unmaximizing; it's not a OS issue. Your dependency is calling ShowWindow(hwnd, SW_RESTORE), which tells Windows to restore (ie unminimize or unmaximize) the window. You probably want to detect whether the window is currently minimized, and use SW_RESTORE if it is, otherwise SW_SHOW.
    – josh3736
    May 8, 2020 at 23:00
  • Thank you for the infromation ! I will check that and hopefully fix it
    – xurei
    May 11, 2020 at 9:12

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