Re: Application Switcher

[Carlos Martín Nieto <carlos cmartin tk>]

On lun, 2009-12-28 at 23:40 +0100, Rovanion Luckey wrote:
> 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

 This type of at-tab has been done by Mac OSX for quite a while already,
it's not new, just a good idea :)

> 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

 What large parts? Do you mean the Asian countries (or the French?).
There's not that many people using Dvorak, are there?

 At any rate, WASD is only there because Xephyr (an embedded X server
you can use to test the shell without affecting your real one) doesn't
set up the keys properly, so it's actually a debug feature (says the
code, anyway).

> without qwerty having to use his right hand either by the arrow keys
> or the mouse. This is not optimal for fast application-switching.

 You can use (and it's probably the fastest way) the mouse and
hover/click on the icon.

> 
> 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?

 It could be useful, though it looks like a bit of a pain to implement,
but the developers should comment on that. Personally, I can see if
becoming more of a hassle than a help, but we can't know that until
someone implements it.

   cmn