Re: Switching Between Applications in Gnome 3

[Luis Menina <liberforce freeside fr>]

Hi,

Le 30/05/2013 17:52, אנטולי קרסנר a écrit :
> This is a lot of open windows, so I group them into workspaces. But it
> doesn't help, I still feel too inefficient sometimes, and I'd like to
> know how I can improve my desktop worflow and usage.

You're not alone. I still have trouble getting the right window in the
foreground. I use GNOME on a netbook (1024×600), and on a desktop with a
16/9 screen. I like to always have my windows maximized.

Window selection using mouse
=============================
I have the « there are several windows of the same application open, and
they look alike » problem. 50% of the time, I click on the wrong one.
This has been somewhat improved on 3.8 with the bigger previews but
doesn't competely fix the problem.

Sometimes that's even the wrong app, but the preview is similar enough
(heck, everything look grey-ish) that I get confused and select the
wrong one. I miss the icon of the application on the preview.

Window selection using keyboard
===============================
I very often use Alt+Tab to select my windows. A frequent use case is:
1. use application A
2. switch to application B (email, something else)
3. switch back to application A and resume my previous task

This is currently something very tedious, especially when both
applications are on different workspaces. Ideally, I see the Alt+Tab
stuff like a queue of frequently selected windows. This means that the
windows I often switch to should never be more than 2 or 3 keystrokes
away. It's also easier for me to remember if I used that window long ago
or just a few seconds before, than remembering how many applications I
have on a specific desktop until I reach the window I'm looking for.

Using the key above tab to cycle between windows of the same application
isn't a solution either I think. I often find myself using Alt+Tab,
seeing it was a mistake, pressing Alt+Tab again to go to the right
application, then pressing Alt+key-above-tab. We shouldn't have to
actually "think" to use something so deeply wired as Alt+Tab for the
"get me back the Window I was working on 5s ago" thing.

I also whish one could cycle through the tabs of a tabbed application
using just Alt+Tab too, gnome shell handling the tabs, to find the tab
of the same application I was using 5s ago.

My 2 cents...
--
Luis Menina