Suggestion for a modified alt-tab ui approach

[Glen Patras <gspat yahoo com>]

Hi!

I've been testing the gnome-shell for a few days now, and have a suggestion for something that has been nagging at me for a bit.

The alt-tab approach as used now seems to be chunky looking at best, and seems to be more a throw-back with a bit of added usability than a modern approach to the issue of task switching (my opinion).

It seems to me that an option is really required to allow a user to be able to do this strictly by mouse control alone.

My suggestion is this. Shrink the window peek view enabled by alt-tab to about one quarter it's size and move it to the bottom right hand corner. have it slide out from the corner somewhat like the overlay panel does now from the left side of the screen and have the arrow for multiple windows point upwards to display the graphic of the applications above the pane that slid out. windows that are minimised could graphically shrink to the bottom right corner of the screen to give the user a visual clue that they can go down there to get it back.

also have a hot corner in the bottom right hand corner that would do the same thing as alt-tab.

On another note, "Activites" is a misnomer as the overlay mode is much more than just that, why not just use a suitable gnome icon instead (since it's not clickable anyways, or make it clickable as well to open the overlay panel) - this would look more polished (again, my opinion).

I started thinking about touch panel technology such as used in the new HP touchsmart PC's and wonder if someone using something akin to that (or apple's rumored touchpad device) would be able to even hit a hotcorner?

What if they were not even using a keyboard and mouse?, just an on-screen keyboard? maybe it would be possible to make a button in the notification area (bottom right hand corner) to pop-out the alt-tab panel. Is the entire bottom area even required for notifications?

Your's Truly,

Glen Patras