Settings reference

Every key in AltTabSettings.ini, which sits beside AltTab.exe. The file can be edited by hand — AltTab notices it changing and reloads it — or through the Settings dialog, which is the same thing with explanations attached. The dialog's Advanced page lists all of these too, including the few that have no control of their own.

Colours are 0xRRGGBB. Booleans are 1 or 0. Hotkeys are written the way they read: Ctrl+Alt+Tab.

This page is generated by Scripts/make_settings_reference.py from the INI the application itself writes and from ATSettingDescriptors() in source/AltTabSettings.cpp. Do not edit it by hand; run the script.

[Hotkeys] — Hotkeys

KeyTypeDefaultWhat it does
AltTabEnabledBoolean1Whether the switch-between-all-windows hotkey is active.
AltBacktickEnabledBoolean1Whether the switch-within-one-application hotkey is active.
AltCtrlTabEnabledBoolean1Whether the stay-open hotkey is active.
AltTabHotkeyAlt+TabThe combination that switches between every window. Needs at least one of Ctrl, Alt or Shift.
AltBacktickHotkeyAlt+Oem3The combination that cycles the windows of one application.
AltCtrlTabHotkeyCtrl+Alt+TabThe combination that opens the switcher and leaves it open when the modifiers are released.
KeyTypeDefaultWhat it does
CueBannerTextTextSearch windows by title or process name...The placeholder shown in the search box while it is empty.
FontNameTextLucida HandwritingFont the search box draws with.
FontSizeInteger11Search box font size, in points.
FontStyleTextnormalnormal, italic, semibold, semibold italic, bold or bold italic.
FontColorColor0xFFFFFFSearch box text colour.
BackgroundColorColor0x2B2B2BSearch box background colour.

[ListView] — Window list

KeyTypeDefaultWhat it does
FontNameTextLucida HandwritingFont the window list draws with.
FontSizeInteger11Window list font size, in points.
FontStyleTextnormalnormal, italic, semibold, semibold italic, bold or bold italic.
FontColorColor0xFFFFFFWindow list text colour.
BackgroundColorColor0x1F1F1FWindow list background colour.
HighlightTextColorColor0x4CC2FFColour of the letters your search matched.
HighlightBackgroundColorColor0x434343Background behind the letters your search matched.
NotRespondingBackgroundColorColor0x52252CBackground for a row whose window is not responding, on Fonts and Colors. A theme derives its own instead.
SelectedBackgroundColorColor0x316179Background of the selected row. Picking a theme loads its own into this. The text on the row is chosen for you, black or white, so a pale colour cannot leave it unreadable.
SelectedOutlineColorColor0x4CC2FFThe frame drawn around the selected row. Absent from the file, it is derived from the theme's accent and the selected background — which is what every built-in palette resolves to.
HoverOutlineColorColor0x5D6F78The frame drawn around the row under the pointer, shown when [MouseHover] ShowHighlightRect is on. Absent from the file, it is derived from the selected row's colour at half strength.
BoldMatchedTextBoolean1Draw the letters your search matched in bold as well as in the matched colors. On many themes the accent is close in brightness to the title text, so weight is what makes a match visible.

[General] — General

KeyTypeDefaultWhat it does
PromptTerminateAllBoolean1Ask for confirmation before closing or terminating every window.
FuzzyMatchPercentInteger60How close a match counts, 1-100. 100 means exact substring matching only; lower values let files match filas.
RowCloseAnimationMsInteger100How long a row takes to fade and slide out when its window is closed, 0-1000. 0 removes it at once.
WindowTransparencyInteger2220-255. 255 is opaque; the default 222 is slightly translucent. Below 255 the switcher is a layered window, which changes how rounded corners are drawn.
WindowWidthPercentageInteger45Switcher width as a percentage of its monitor's width.
WindowHeightPercentageInteger45The most of its monitor's height the switcher may use. It is only ever as tall as the rows it has.
ShowSearchStringBoolean1Show the search box at the top of the switcher.
KeepOpenWhileTypingBoolean0Off by default. Off, releasing the hotkey activates the selected window whether or not you have typed. On, the switcher stays up once there is search text and waits for Enter, a click or Escape.
RoundedCornersBoolean1Round the switcher's corners, radius 8.
ShowColProcessNameBoolean0Show the process-name column.
CheckForUpdatesChoiceStartupStartup, Daily, Weekly or Never.
UpdateChannelChoiceStableStable, Stable (delayed 1 week) or Developer. Stable offers released versions only, and the delayed form waits until a release is a week old so that other people meet a bad one first. Developer also offers pre-releases. To stop checking at all, set CheckForUpdates to Never. Nothing is installed without asking.
CrashReportingChoiceAlwaysWhether a crash is reported to the project's Sentry. Never initialises nothing and opens no connection; Always (the default) sends the call stack, the module list and the version when AltTab crashes. No memory dump, so no window titles, file paths or search text, and no machine or user name. See PRIVACY.md.
SwitcherMonitorChoiceCursorWhich monitor the switcher opens on: Cursor, ActiveWindow or Primary.
PreviewPlacementChoiceAutoWhere the live preview switcher sits while the Settings window is open: Auto puts them on separate monitors when there are two, SameMonitor stacks them on the Settings window's own monitor, and OtherMonitor keeps them apart wherever it can. Stacked is what a screenshot of both needs; apart is what makes the size and centring settings worth judging.
SystemTrayIconEnabledBoolean1Show AltTab's icon in the notification area.
ThemeTextDarkThe theme whose colours are loaded. One of the built-in palettes, or one of your own from a [Theme.<Name>] section. Default is AltTab's own colours.
UseThemeColorsBoolean0A one-shot instruction, not a setting you leave on: set it to 1 and the theme named above is loaded into the colour settings the next time AltTab reads this file, and the key is cleared. That is how a file written by an older build keeps looking the same.

[MouseHover] — Mouse

KeyTypeDefaultWhat it does
ShowProcessInfoTooltipBoolean1Show the information tooltip when the pointer rests on a row.
ShowHighlightRectBoolean1Outline the row under the pointer.
ShowDeleteButtonBoolean1Show a close button on the row under the pointer.
TooltipDelayMsInteger100How long the pointer must rest before a tooltip appears, 0-5000.
BoldTooltipLabelsBoolean1Draw the tooltip's labels in bold, on the Mouse page. The values beside them keep the ordinary weight unless BoldTooltipValues is on.
BoldTooltipValuesBoolean0Bold the values in the row tooltip as well, not only the labels. Off by default: the two-column table reads well precisely because one column is heavier than the other.

[Backtick] — Switching within an application

KeyTypeDefaultWhat it does
SimilarProcessGroupsTextnotepad.exe/notepad++.exe&#124;iexplore.exe/msedge.exe/chrome.exe/firefox.exe&#124;explorer.exe/xplorer2_lite.exe/xplorer2.exe/xplorer2_64.exe&#124;cmd.exe/WindowsTerminal.exe/conemu.exe/conemu64.exeApplications treated as one for switch-within-an-application. Groups are separated by &#124;, executables within a group by /. The groups are mutually exclusive: an executable can be in only one of them. If the same name appears twice, the first group keeps it and the later one loses it — and a group left with fewer than two names is dropped, since it cannot group anything.

[ProcessExclusions] — Hidden applications

KeyTypeDefaultWhat it does
EnabledBoolean0Whether the list below is applied.
ProcessListText(empty)Executables whose windows are hidden from the switcher, separated by /.