Re: Why nested alt-tab?

[David Mulder <greatslovakia zoho com>]

There are two different currently used methods to consider or an alternative method as I started describing above.

• Mac: Windows are organised by application and alt+tab (cmd+tab) rotates through all applications chronologically 'by update'. Cmd+~ is used to rotate through the windows of the currently selected application.
• Advantages:
• Feels more organised
• Disadvantage
• Unintuitive IMO even after using it for approximately a year.
• Windows: (Didn't use it but if I remember correctly) All applications are rotated through 'by update'
• Advantage:
• Feels quite intuitive
• Disadvantage:
• Once you get a fair amount of windows it becomes fairly disorganised and is only practical if you want to rotate through the last three windows (otherwise the taskbar/gnome shell is used)

Problems with the current alt+tab (ubuntu/windows)

• Tabs from existing applications are not automatically integrated, although I think this problem was addressed in Windows 7
• When switching between more than ~3 windows the user needs to use the taskbar/gnome shell. If we want to regard this as a problem than we should research a solution, otherwise the alt tab interface should be explicitly designed to only focus on the last four windows.
• Alt+tab can only be practically used using keyboard input, yet mainly serves the same purpose as the taskbar, it would make sense to have a uniform interface. Possibly this could mean that we should consider alt+tab opening the gnome-shell and have it rotate through the currently open icons on the left and show the relevant windows on the right (this would be a nested implementation, so we should be aware of the disadvantages)

If there is sufficient interest I could create a graphical mockup of the last idea I described.

David Mulder

PS. I don't have ubuntu right now, as I can't install it with my cd drive broken and all usb's I have created not functioning. I however do follow the gnome-shell actively, as I think it might very well be the best UI I have seen ever and once I get ubuntu functioning I might help developing it as well, as I read it is partially written in _javascript_ (which I am quite good in). 

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:41 PM, Gregory Petrosyan <gregory petrosyan gmail com> wrote:

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Rovanion Luckey
<rovanion luckey gmail com> wrote:
> Why reinvent the wheel is the question you're asking?
> In a case where we conclude that the current ways of doing things is the
> best there ever will be we can stop developing Gnome Shell  totally since
> the optimal way of operating your desktop is already here.

OK: can anybody provide a good rationale for changing alt-tab? Or what
are the problems with windows-style one?

               Gregory
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