Bsrgvty

The other option -which I'm testing out this week- is to have the ALT+TAB switch between apps, and ALT+| switch between windows of the same app. It sounds complicated but it works surprisingly well.

Use case A: You're on Firefox and want to switch to Thunderbird: ALT+TAB.

Use case B: You're on a Calc window and want to switch to another Calc window: ALT+|.

In B, you could use the old way of ALT+TAB, where it cycles through all your windows, but it can take a while to do that if you have more than a few windows open. With this thing, you always know where you want to go, and choose the quicker way to get there.

I choose | because it's just above TAB, so my brain and my finger don't need to move very far.

To enable this: System Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Navigation > Switch windows of an application (it's just underneath Switch applications, which is how I found it).

Easy to test, safe, easy to revert, no need to install anything.

Otuzbesli's answer works but for Ubunut 14.04 you need to install compiz-plugins in addition to compizconfig-settings-manager

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-plugins

Before installing anything, try these key combinations:

• 
  alt + | (the key above Tab, may be `, º, |...) to switch between instances of the current application


• 
  alt + ESC to direct switch to the next window


• 
  alt + Tab, of course, to switch between different applications

You can see the three keys are neighbors.

I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 running the Gnome shell. I installed Gnome Tweaks via

sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool

and went to

Extensions -> AlternateTab

and switched the toggle to "On".

This changed the window-switcher to not group by application.

I tried this and as soon as I launched ccsm:

• my desktop was gone. No start menu, taskbar, launcher.. Just the wallpaper.


• 
  Alt+Tab doesn't work at all.

I was able to launch a Terminal using right click on desktop. Many people faced this under different situations. Solution always said reset compiz config, delete x11 config, delete gnome config and launch unity with setsid unit && unit.

For me it said:

(0)kash@Laptop$ setsid unity
setsid: failed to execute unity: No such file or directory
(0)kash@Laptop$

They also said launch ccsm again and enable Unity plugin there. Well, it just wasn't there in the list of enabled or disabled plugins.

Many heart attacks later

sudo apt-get install unity
unity

I hate the dev who made ccsm.

After you install Unity, when you launch ccsm, it has Unity plugin in it.

I had Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS running inside a VirtualBox with Windows 10 Host.

Just thought I would share this since I tried to follow the accepted answer but couldn't find the Ubuntu Unity switcher. I'm running 18.04 and I was able to change the alt-tab behavior by:

1. going to settings->devices->keyboard


2. scroll down to the shortcut for "Switch Windows" (under the "Navigation" section)


3. change the shortcut for Switch Windows to alt-tab

This will overwrite the shortcut for "Switch Applications" which is the default behavior for alt-tab

"Alt + F6" can be used to switch the window within the same application while "Alt + Tab" continues to be the best known combination to switch to another application.