Features request

[rmurphy08]

Hi,

I have been playing around with fusion for a while on my macbook running leopard and Windows XP as a virtual machine. There were a few peculiarities that I was wondering whether someone might consider addressing. I read somewhere else on this forum that this is the best and most appropriate place to submit features requests, so here it goes, in descending order of importance to me.

1. Alt (apple) + Tab Switching - Currently our traditional apple-tab only switches between apple applications, even when in full-screen windows mode. I would like there to be a way for us to be able to apple-tab through running windows programs. I know this can be done in unity, but I would like a better way to navigate my Windows windows from the keyboard. I think parallels does this, but I am not sure. My school uses parallels so I wanted to test vmware.

2. Alt + F4 - I hate using my mouse/trackpad, and have grown accustomed to using keyboard shortcuts. One of my favorites was the ability to either close a program or window by Alt/Ctrl + F4. I do not seem to be able to use that keyboard shortcut when running Windows in vmware.

3. Swap Alt & Apple - Would it be possible to have the apple key serve as the alt key and the alt key to serve as the windows key? In apple world, the apple key is a lot like the alt key (and the ctrl key I guess too). It is weird having the apple key as the windows key because of this familarity.

4. Migration - This isn't as big of a deal, but I just thought I'd mention it. Would it be possible to migrate a VMware windows machine to boot camp? OR a way to make boot camp recognize the VMware file AS a partition?

Does anyone else have any features request? OR was I too obtuse and missed these features already present in VMWare fusion?

Thanks,

~Robert

[admin]

1. Alt (apple) + Tab Switching - Currently our traditional apple-tab only switches between apple applications, even when in full-screen windows mode. I would like there to be a way for us to be able to apple-tab through running windows programs. I know this can be done in unity, but I would like a better way to navigate my Windows windows from the keyboard. I think parallels does this, but I am not sure. My school uses parallels so I wanted to test vmware.

Noted.

2. Alt + F4 - I hate using my mouse/trackpad, and have grown accustomed to using keyboard shortcuts. One of my favorites was the ability to either close a program or window by Alt/Ctrl + F4. I do not seem to be able to use that keyboard shortcut when running Windows in vmware.

Works for me. One thing to remember on certain Apple keyboards is that the function keys aren't really function keys by default, you would need to use alt-fn-F4. You can change this under System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard >Use all F1, F2, etc....

3. Swap Alt & Apple - Would it be possible to have the apple key serve as the alt key and the alt key to serve as the windows key? In apple world, the apple key is a lot like the alt key (and the ctrl key I guess too). It is weird having the apple key as the windows key because of this familarity.

: Swap Alt and Windows

4. Migration - This isn't as big of a deal, but I just thought I'd mention it. Would it be possible to migrate a VMware windows machine to boot camp? OR a way to make boot camp recognize the VMware file AS a partition?

As far as I know, there's not an easy way to go from a virtual environment to a physical one. The best method I can think of is to use third-party software to backup inside the guest, then restore to a Boot Camp partition.

[borisdusek]

With the issue No. 2: to press F4 (or any other F<number> key), you need to press it with "fn" key (it's in the low left corner on Macbook Pro at least). So to give Windows the AltF4 keypress, just press fnAlt+F4.

And yes, I can say, it's a bit of mess to use same but not the same shortcuts at the same time, but that's simply the nature of running operating systems with different behaviors at the same time. And it's a matter of personal preference whether you want to modify the Windows shortcuts to match Apple's, or to use genuine Windows shortcuts (i.e. good to be used to them in case you have to work on a real Windows/Linux computer and not be confused by non-Mac shortcuts).

I saw some work done by VMware in 1.1.1 release, i.e. you should be able to use AppleV instead of CtrlV (and others) inside Windows VM.

[rmurphy08]

Wow! Great! Thanks for the input. The F4 issue was weird because I tried the Fn key to no avail. After I swapped the Windows & Alt key as described in the guide above, it worked again. I appreciate both of your answers, they were excellent. So, the main issue that remains is that of "Alt-tabbing" between open applications. Thanks again!

~Robert

[borisdusek]

Hi again,

with alt-tabbing: I simply use alt+tab (I use either windowed or full-screen modes, never unity, not sure if it works there). I actually find it cool since you can distinguish 2 purposes when running Windows VM in fullscreen/windowed mode:

1. alt-tab: switch just Windows applications (you always stay inside VM with this)

2. apple-tab: switch between applications outside the VM and VM itself - great if you know exactly what application outside VM you want to open (i.e. browser with some specific information you found there); you then use the information and this apple-tab once again to return to the VM (no need to click on the VM window for it to get focus again)

Note that for that you need to have the "Enable Mac OS keyboard shortcuts" checked in Fusion preferences.