Application Switcher

[Rovanion Luckey <rovanion luckey gmail com>]

I was using the application switcher in Gnome-shell thinking about how
much it made sense to have the application switcher to actually switch
inbetween applications, not windows. That's really besides the point
which is usability. The great thing about it is that it reinovates the
application switcher that was designed at a point in time when users
did not have that many windows running at the same time. The general
application switcher is a cluttered interface and is therefor scarcely
used. Grouping the windows by application is the same innovation that
Microsoft did with their new taskbar, but lets not speak about the
devil.

The problem with the application switcher in its current state is that
the transition between applications and windows is not as smooth as it
can be. You do at the moment have to use weird and odd
key-combinations to go from the application-row to the window-row. The
wasd way of orientation is ruled out by the fact that large parts of
the linux-using population does not use qwerty. That leaves the user
without qwerty having to use his right hand either by the arrow keys
or the mouse. This is not optimal for fast application-switching.

The idea would be that you when pushing alt-tab choose an application
to switch to just as the application switcher works in it's current
state. But only application-icons should be shown. And rather than
than having the user to either push the applications icon with the
mouse or press down-key on the keyboard the application/group of
windows should be chosen when alt is released. If there is only one
window belonging to the application there is nothing more to do than
to switch to the appropriate desktop and show the window. If there on
the other hand are multiple windows belonging to the same application
these windows should be shown now just as windows are shown on each
desktop in the activities view. So other windows on the current
desktop should be pushed aside as the windows belonging to the
application chosen quickly appear/slides in on the desktop. One may
then use the tab key, the arrow keys or the mouse to select which
window you want to go to. Keys to activate the window chosen could be
the alt and enter keys, or why not space?

This removes the hazzle of having to use the arrow-keys (read a second
hand) to switch between applications using alt tab. The wasd-style of
switching between applications only work if you have a qwerty
keyboard. With this setup you press alt+tab to open up the application
switcher. You select what application you wish to switch to with tab
and then release alt to select it, just as you would with any other
application switcher. But if there are more than one window you use
tab to switch between the windows and alt to select the window. Using
the activities style of showing the windows provides larger images of
the windows making it easier to see which one of the office documents
you really want to, tough this could just as well work with the
current style of the application switcher.

Pardon me for being so long-winded. Have a great day!

--
www.twitter.com/Rovanion
MSN: rovanion luckey gmail com