• What is DualLane?
So, a weird update, a long time without any activity here. But just passing by to share a little experiment I’ve been working on (more than the AI of the day, right? nowadays everything seems to be under the hood of agents).
So, kind of, if you don’t find the solution out there, fix it yourself. The idea is simple: not all open apps are equally important. You have a handful you switch to constantly (your editor, browser, terminal) and then a long tail of everything else, but you still need them to be ’there’, like your music app.
If your hands are close to the keyboard most of the time, it’s highly probable that you’re familiar with Cmd+Tab.
But the Mac default switcher treats all apps the same, which means more scanning and more keystrokes.
So the app I’m sharing here is DualLane, a macOS app switcher built to replace the default Cmd+Tab experience with something more intentional (and efficient).
DualLane splits things into two rows:
- Primary lane: the apps you put there. Your go-to tools, always at the top.
- Secondary lane: everything else, out of the way but reachable.
Worth noting that you can move apps from one lane to another (with keys or with the settings menu). You can hide apps if you don’t want them to be displayed. And you can hide or rename the ’name’ of the apps (useful for apps that have many instances under the same name, like Unity).
Hopefully somebody finds this useful :)
Btw, since you have to ‘catch’ and intercept this system command (the Cmd+Tab), Apple is not really happy with this kind of apps in the store. So, same as other excellent alternatives like Alt-Tab, it is not in the store but on the website as a dmg properly notarized.