Re: Two proposals for Gnome-shell

[David Prieto <frandavid100 gmail com>]

Hi Florian, thanks for your anser,

Not entirely correct - the workspace separation of both icons and
thumbnails only covers "on the current workspace" / "on another
workspace".

True, I have to give you that.
 

I can only guess, but I'd say that one major point is to make the dash
more stable - the alt-tab switcher is at least stable during each
invocation (there may be a workspace switch when leaving the switcher,
but never while it's up), but applying the same logic in the dash would
not only mean that the icon order changes between overview invocations,
but also while the overview is up.

You also have a point there. Applications with windows on several workspaces would have to change place every time a different workspace were selected.
 

In my opinion there would also be some issues with the dash displaying
not only running applications, but favorites as well - favorites being
listed first in a user specified order, followed by non-favorite running
apps. Bringing workspaces in would necessarily require mixing favorites
and running apps (and breaking the order defined by the user).

I may not have myself clear there: the top part would show only non-running favourites, and the workspace would show any type of running app (either favourite or non-favourite). Therefore, non-running favourites would never mix. They would always be apart.
 

Adding thumbnails to running applications would double the functionality
of the window picker (which should be the primary mean of selecting a
specific window in the overview) - using the right-click menu to select
a window gives another selection method, in case the previews are not
distinct enough to pick the right one.

Two things I'd like to say about that:

First, it would "kinda" double the picker's functionality. You use the picker to select any window from a given workspace, regardless of its app. You would use the dash to select any window from a given app, regardless of its workspace. That's two different usercases: in the first you're looking for a window you have more or less in front of you, in the second you're looking for a Firefox window but you don't quite remember where you put it.

Second, I don't think the thumbnails should appear right away. I think having them appear on right-click (or maybe pressing right if you're using the keyboard) should be enough. So, basically the same we have now, only showing previews instead of a list.
 

You brought very good points to the table, thanks a lot :-)