Re: Application Switcher

[Rovanion Luckey <rovanion luckey gmail com>]

One thing mentioned earlier in the mailinglist, tough I seem unable to find and quote it right here, is the function of the Mac OS X's application switcher. Would this style work in the context of the Gnome-Shell?

In the usecase where the user only has one or two windows of the same application active on the same workspace this model can very well. But in the usecase where the users uses more than two windows of the same application, IE Firefox, relying on this application switcher to switch between windows becomes tedious and clumsy. I am not a Mac user my self and have never been so I don't know how the Apple works around this.

That is not the whole point of GNOME Shell, or even a point of GNOME
Shell currently. If you want to distribute your activities (applications
and documents) across workspaces, then that's fine, but we're just as
happy if you have them all together.

If the goal for the shell is to be versatile and as you say allow the use his or her computer as he or she wishes we must appeal to both the many windows on one workspace usecase and the many workspaces usecase.

The current application switcher with its application grouping works well for the user who does not group windows on workspaces. One could assume that this user because of not having any organisation via workspaces will appreciate the automatic organisation via the application switcher. But in the usecase when multiple workspaces are used to separate activities grouping by application may be useful but not as useful as it's just another step when you want to switch between the windows you have on your workspace, which is what you're actively working with at the moment. A Super+tab switcher that cycles trough the windows of the current workspace could fit this situation very well.

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