[In-app feedback]

[alt-tab-macos-bot]

This issue was opened by a bot after a user submitted feedback through the in-app form.

From: h0pemailfilter-apple@yahoo.com

Message:

Can you fix alt-tab to work better with Microsoft RDP App? I got a live connection to a remote desktop and only one outlook rdp windows is active. However I see 4-6 windows in alt tab, with weird button graphics and what not. But they aren't actually active windows even if you try to close them or swap to them to be active those doing nothing.
Would love to add screenshot but here I can't unfortunately.

Debug profile

• App version: 6.52.1
• App preferences:
  • MSAppCenter310AppCenterUserDefaultsMigratedKey: 1
  • MSAppCenter310CrashesUserDefaultsMigratedKey: 1
  • MSAppCenterAppDidReceiveMemoryWarning: 1
  • MSAppCenterInstallId: 22183E9D-8250-4B2C-B694-8362786672BA
  • MSAppCenterNetworkRequestsAllowed: 0
  • MSAppCenterPastDevices: {length = 1150, bytes = 0x62706c69 73743030 d4010203 04050607 ... 00000000 0000038a }
  • MSAppCenterSessionIdHistory: {length = 460, bytes = 0x62706c69 73743030 d4010203 04050607 ... 00000000 00000156 }
  • MSAppCenterUserIdHistory: {length = 455, bytes = 0x62706c69 73743030 d4010203 04050607 ... 00000000 00000151 }
  • NSWindow Frame SUStatusFrame: 640 686 400 135 0 0 1680 1050
  • NSWindow Frame SUUpdateAlert: 530 489 620 398 0 0 1680 1050
  • SUHasLaunchedBefore: 1
  • SULastCheckTime: 2023-01-19 09:40:09 +0000
  • SUUpdateGroupIdentifier: 1225093794
  • SUUpdateRelaunchingMarker: 0
  • appsToShow2: 1
  • crashPolicy: 1
  • holdShortcut: ⌘
  • holdShortcut2: ⌥
  • menubarIcon: 0
  • nextWindowShortcut: ⇥
  • nextWindowShortcut2:
  • preferencesVersion: 6.52.1
  • updatePolicy: 1
  • windowMaxWidthInRow: 30
• Applications: 42
• Windows: 14
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: false, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 1, spaceIndex: 1}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: false, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 1, spaceIndex: 1}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: false, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 1, spaceIndex: 1}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: false, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 1, spaceIndex: 1}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: false, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 1, spaceIndex: 1}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: false, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 1, spaceIndex: 1}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: false, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 1, spaceIndex: 1}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: false, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 1, spaceIndex: 1}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: false, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 1, spaceIndex: 1}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: false, isMinimized: true, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 1, spaceIndex: 1}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: false, isMinimized: true, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 1, spaceIndex: 1}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: true, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: false, spaceId: 18446744073709551615, spaceIndex: 9223372036854775807}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: true, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 18446744073709551615, spaceIndex: 9223372036854775807}
  • {isFullscreen: false, isWindowlessApp: true, isMinimized: false, isHidden: false, isTabbed: false, isOnAllSpaces: false, shouldShowTheUser: true, spaceId: 18446744073709551615, spaceIndex: 9223372036854775807}
• OS version: Version 13.1 (Build 22C65)
• OS architecture: arm64
• Locale: en_HU (current)
• Spaces: 1
• Dark mode: Light
• "Displays have separate Spaces": checked
• Hardware model: MacBookAir10,1
• Screens: 1
  • {x: 0.0, y: 0.0, width: 1680.0, height: 1050.0}
• CPU model: Apple M1
• Memory size: 17,18 GB
• Active CPU count: 8
• Current CPU frequency: nil
• Resource utilization:
  • CPU: 0.0%
  • Memory: 82M-
  • Threads count: 10

[40P3]

Ok I see its github, I got account here so I add screenshot...

[lwouis]

Hi,

AltTab reports windows that exist here. Why Microsoft RDP creates these, I'm not sure, but the windows exist. Please report this issue to Microsoft RDP customer service

[40P3]

Hi,

Turned off alt-tab software (choose quit)

Pushed alt tab (native macos tabbing function). It shows one from all applications (obviously, thats why we use alt tab software :D).
So if I push command + ' key, then I can see the RDP related windows.
And there is only two visible natively.
So this seems like alt tab doing something with these invisible windows to me, they don't exists natively when I alt tab.
If you did check this, let me know how to see that so I can confirm this to Microsoft and I will open a ticket for them for sure.

[40P3]

I mean look at this, this is clearly not ok. :D

[lwouis]

@40P3 what's a window in the first place? A window on macOS is when software uses the APIs provided by macOS to spawn a window. For most apps, the APIs are in AppKit, and people tend to use NSWindow.

When they call that code, they may be creating what you would consider a window. But they could also create a panel, a HUD, a dialog, etc. They could also make the window invisible, 1px by 1px, transparent, off-screen, etc.

It's common for messy applications, like Steam, IntelliJ, or here Microsoft RDP, to use NSWindow to do "hacks". For example, they could create a full screen invisible window to absorb clicks. That way they can disable clicks for a while, for some need the app has.

What you're seeing is AltTab reporting windows that actually exist, but are "hacks" used by Microsoft RDP to achieve something. The windows are there, but not necessarily visible to you as standard windows.

AltTab already filters out some windows like very small, dialogs, HUDs, etc. But there is a limit to what we can guess the window is for. Here these windows are reporting to the OS that they are actual user windows. Thus AltTab does its job and lists them. Microsoft should either remove these hacks, or report them as non-standard windows, so AltTab will ignore them.

I hope it helps

[40P3]

I ment window as an "application window" selectable with alt tabs. Some apps by default got only one window but as you said there might be different hidden windows I'm not sure, however those hidden windows/app windows aren't visible without AltTab active, so you might be right but I can't tell, all I see is a lot of crazy small nonexisting "windows" on alt tab but they aren't doing anything.

Interesting that you mention steam that was always working nice to me with alt tab but maybe then you created some "fix" on alt-tab app for such window management? Would be good if you could do a workaround for RDP as well.

[lwouis]

Yes Steam has heavy workarounds in AltTab to be usable. Again, because they created windows poorly. They use windows to implement dropdown menus, as a concrete example. You can imagine that it would be nonsense for an AltTab user to show a Steam dropdown menu as a window. Yet they use the APIs to create windows to do it.

i don't have a licence for MS RDP so i can't develop a workaround like Steam. I also don't have time these days for this, unfortunately #1179