How to switch between DAW windows? (Mac)

General Discussion
1

Hey hey,

I want to switch apps around between displays.

For example: I have a macbook and an external display. I often use logic and renoise together having one window open on my MBP display and the main thing I’m looking at on my external display.

I know by pressing F9 you can switch between windows, but when you select the window, it just brings it to the front. What I want to be able to do is have it so: logic is open on external display (ED), renoise is open on MBP-display (MBPD), I want to be able to press a button or use an app or something that will allow renoise and logic to swap places (and, even better, fill their respective screens when they swap places).

Is there anyway to do this?

With logic you can open up as many windows as you want, so, you can have multiple arrange windows, etc. So, for that half of the equation it’s easy. I just open 2 logic windows and have one on one display and the other on the other (so I can switch between logic and renoise on ONE display), but you can’t open more than one arrange window with renoise.

Any workarounds anyone can think of? Any apps?

It would make workflow so nice and smooth, just switching around at the press of a button.

2

Ok, I think you should be able to do this using AppleScript, using the AppleScript Editor. You can send relatively human language-type commands to System Services and any app directly - this should allow for moving windows from one monitor to the other.

We can go through this in greater detail once on monday, if you feel like it. It’s strictly possible to create an AppleScript app that is mapped to a specific keyboard shortcut, which will switch between these. (the AppleScript language supports if/else type stuff so we could easily say (this is just an example, not actual code: if renoise.app in second_monitor and logicpro in first_monitor, move renoise_app to first_monitor and logic_pro to second_monitor, resize to fit to specific monitor size). you can also send specific shortcuts (during this script’s runtime) to logic and renoise, and decide which one is brought up).

I’ve used AppleScript for creating a gig-script, when I go to a gig, I load the gig.App, and it boots up Ableton Live, Sample Manager, Audio Midi Setup, waits and loads up Renoise in ReWire mode and opens up Finder windows to specific folders that I need to drag stuff into Renoise from etc. It’s really quite handy.

At least Logic should allow for Maximize To Fit Screen (there might be an AppleScript dictionary for Logic with some rudimentary support for windows management etc), and if Renoise allows for it, not on an AppleScript level (direct Renoise<->AppleScript-support) then at least Renoise should allow for it via Renoise Shortcut level, which is when you send a specific shortcut to Renoise directly, like this:

  
tell application “Renoise” to activate  
tell application “System Events”  
tell process “Renoise” to keystroke “L” using command down  
end tell

Try it out with your Renoise shortcut of choice and see what happens.

This is an interesting problem, so once I get a second monitor hooked up, I’d be intrigued by trying to figure out a solution to this problem.

Incidentally, if you need some random pointers as to how applescript might be used in Live/Logic/etc environments, check out my rambly blog – just keep scrolling down until you hit GrandPerspective/Logic type AppleScript posts.