Owen Taylor wrote:
> - In what cases does GNOME Shell work less well?
Hi,
switching between applications in the same workspace is an issue for me.
The current solutions (Activities or Alt-Tab) are much more cumbersome
than using a simple window list, they take longer and demand a higher
mental effort. In general, it is a horrible idea to demand user action
every time that one wishes to know something as trivial and common as
the list of windows in the current workspace.
With a window list:
- look at window list (always in the same, small, predictable place)
- find desired application
- move mouse there
- click
With the current Shell:
- move mouse to the top left corner
- wait for the Activities view to appear
- change mental context (you are not in the workspace anymore!)
- inspect Activities view
(too much information to process for a simple operation?)
- find current workspace (somewhere in the whole screen)
- identify applications in the desired workspace
- find desired application
- move mouse to desired application
- click
- change mental context (back to the workspace!)
Furthermore, identifying windows in a workspace in the Activities view
is far too hard to do. For some reason, the space that is used to
display the window's name depends on the window's width. For instance,
beneath my Pidgin window I can just see "...". The more workspaces one
has, the harder it gets to switch between applications in the same
workspace.
Another thing that I can't quite understand is the list of items in the
top-right menu. I honestly fail to see how changing my IM status can be
related to configuring the system or even shutting it down. Also, I
don't need to have my own name permanently displayed on the screen all
the time, so that space could probably be used in something more useful.
> - How could the GNOME Shell ideas be adapted and extended to
> work better in those cases?
>
> - What alternate ideas would address the issues that the GNOME shell
> design document starts from? how would you evolve the GNOME shell
> in those directions?
Use a window list. Probably rethink the top panel entirely.
Regards,
Felipe
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