The usual command to shift between windows within a program doesn't seem to work for PD. Is there an alternative? Its normally "applekey" and "~".

F9 will display all your open windows
F10 will show all open windows for your current app.
F11 moves everything aside to show you your desktop

CTRL+Tab

COMMAND+TAB (COMMAND=MAC/APPLE KEY)
And i think "~" is meaned as the TAB-Key ?!

F9, F10, F11 only works when it is set in the System-Property's.

command+~ goes between windows in a program, as he said in the original post, but he also said it doesn't seem to work in pd.

command+tab will go between different programs.

Something you might want to try is setting up some hot corners.
I know they make my life a lot easier.
Or just turning on the F9,10,11 functions.

thanks for all the advice. I'd forgotten about f10. thats probably closest to what i'm after. i think i'll look into those hot corners also.