You can enable tabbed mode for a split (or the entire screen) in i3/Sway with a single keypress-- it produces the same effect as what you describe, just automat

You can enable tabbed mode for a split (or the entire screen) in i3/Sway with a single keypress-- it produces the same effect as what you describe, just automated. edit: You can also use something like rofi to fuzzy search for windows and quickly jump to them, instead of alt+tabbing.