Fwd: Application Switcher

[Rovanion Luckey <rovanion luckey gmail com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rovanion Luckey <rovanion luckey gmail com>
Date: 2009/12/29
Subject: Re: Application Switcher
To: Carlos Martín Nieto <carlos cmartin tk>


Yes I'm talking about countries in asia and all over the world. If you
wish only to look at the western world there are many countries in
eastern europe who do not use qwerty. And along that there are english
speaking persons who do use Dvorak. But it sounds like the wasd
feuture isn't going to be going mainstream anyways. The result being
that there is no onehand way to orient trough the alt-tab application
switcher.

Anyhow, this idea can be broken down into two separate ideas, one much
easier to implement than the other:

The first idea being that currently marked application should be
chosen when alt is released rather than the application switcher being
shut down. Pressing and releseing alt again in the window chooser will
then activate the marked window.

The second idea being clutterifying the application switcher so to
make the windows easier recognize. Maybe have all the windows
belonging to an application halfhidden underneath the icon for the
application and then when the application is hovered/chosen the
windows are shown side-by-side.



2009/12/29 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
>
>
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>



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