After 2 days of tweaking and testing some workflows, this is what I settled with. I ran a combination of both phrase-express (any macro program works here) and autohotkey here, so I can have an extremely flexible layout
F1 → Binded to WIN+1 key
F2 → Binded to WIN+2 key
F3 → Binded to Win+4 key
F4 → Binded to Win+4 key
For F5 to F7 keys, I used autohotkey
F5::
IfWinNotExist, ahk_class Chrome_WidgetWin_1
Run, chrome.exe
GroupAdd, kjexplorers5, ahk_class Chrome_WidgetWin_1 ;You have to make a new group for each application, don't use the same one for all of them!
if WinActive("ahk_exe chrome.exe")
GroupActivate, kjexplorers5, r
else
WinActivate ahk_class Chrome_WidgetWin_1 ;you have to use WinActivatebottom if you didn't create a window group.
Return
F6::
IfWinNotExist, ahk_class ConsoleWindowClass
Run, cmd.exe
GroupAdd, kjexplorers6, ahk_class ConsoleWindowClass ;You have to make a new group for each application, don't use the same one for all of them!
if WinActive("ahk_exe cmd.exe")
GroupActivate, kjexplorers6, r
else
WinActivate ahk_class ConsoleWindowClass ;you have to use WinActivatebottom if you didn't create a window group.
Return
F7::
IfWinNotExist, ahk_class QWidget
Run, anki.exe
GroupAdd, kjexplorers7, ahk_class QWidget ;You have to make a new group for each application, don't use the same one for all of them!
if WinActive("ahk_exe anki.exe")
GroupActivate, kjexplorers7, r
else
WinActivate ahk_class QWidget ;you have to use WinActivatebottom if you didn't create a window group.
Return
F5 to F7 uses the same variant autohotkey, I just changed up the groupnames
, the .exe files
, and the ahk_class
names.
This is how I organize the structure of my windows taskbar

So I press
- F5 (3 times), and it pushes each chrome window I have up to the top of each of my 3 monitors.
- F6 and I can quickly pop out whatever command prompts I have open, one command prompt for gulp commands, and one for git, independent of any IDE.
- F7 twice to quickly add some new flashcards
I can restructure F1 F2 F3 F4 to whatever app I'm currently using. Anything that goes here I only keep one window per app at a time. Like I only run one firefox window (to watch tutorial youtube videos), only one running application of PHPstorm, etc.
Demonstration of F6 key in action (command prompt)

Then why not you try
Win+4
according to your screenshot? – Biswapriyo – 2017-11-04T21:30:34.877If a program can have multiple windows open (Excel, Word, Chrome), using WIN+4 requires alot of clicking navigation and or button pressing. Its also not that button friendly for my fingers. In this 9 min video, this guy explains why WIN+4 is not efficient. This video (time stamp 8:10 minute mark) explains all the inefficient pitfalls with using this key combo https://youtu.be/OqyQABySV8k?t=490. Some of the windows shortcut commands/UI /animations for win+4 are just terribly made in windows 7 to windows 10. The only solution really is autohotkey to my knowledge
– Vincent Tang – 2017-11-05T03:46:49.233