Quick feedback: I love gnome-shell for task-switching

[nodata <lsof nodata co uk>]

Some thoughts after testing gnome-shell-2.28.0-3.fc12 for two days.

I really really like using gnome-shell for switching applications and 
would be happy to use it for just that.

I made a few notes specific to the way I use gnome.

1. Make it easy to launch a new instance of an application

I use lots of gnome terminals filled with tabs. One window of tabbed 
sessions for prod servers, one for test, etc. Clicking to start a 
terminal would always switch to the current terminal I had open.
Right-clicking showed me that I could open a new instance of the 
application, but this was so much harder than the old way: clicking the 
terminal icon in the panel at the top of the screen.

While writing this e-mail I decided to check if Shift+click did what I 
expected: nope. Just before sending this e-mail I tried Ctrl+click: 
bingo! Much better, but gnome-shell either needs to hint at this 
behaviour, or it needs to provide the old simple clickable icon in 
panel. For someone who religously starts and stops terminals for 
separate tasks (actually for starting applications generally) the old 
panel is more efficient: one click without anything else.

2. Could make it easier for users to test

People have their common apps in their panel. Can they be imported?
I'm not allowed to drag and drop them, the panels is gone! This would 
save the frustration of adding apps there.

3. Window behaviour

I really like the way the windows are spaced apart in the app switcher 
view, and the way new virtual desktops can be added and deleted. If a 
specific desktop could be removed rather than the last, I would have no 
suggestions here, other than to let desktops be movable to change their 
order.

4. Probable bugs

I need to be able to see the date: please use my date format at the top 
of the screen. Volume control needs to expand like under metacity.

nd