Re: Two proposals for Gnome-shell

[David Prieto <frandavid100 gmail com>]

Jesse, I've been thinking for a while about my last message and I thought I might flesh it out a bit, and propose a specific workflow for a user that might:

• Want to have an overview of what is in his existing workspaces.
• Want to reach a specific app in a specific workspace.
• Want to reach a specific window from an app, but he doesn't remember in which workspace it is.

I will also suppose that the workspaces are integrated into the sidebar, so that it has three states:

• "Workspace state", where the sidebar is wider and you handle workspaces rather than apps.
• "App state", where you handle apps. This one already exists, it's the normal sidebar.
• "Window state", where you handle specific windows from the same app. This also exists, it's what you get when you right-click an app icon.

Let's see what the user can do, using the mouse, after clicking "Activities":

• If he wants to have an idea of what windows are in each workspace, he presses the cursor over the left edge of the screen to enter "workspace state". When he hovers the cursor over a workspace area, the window picker shows that workspace's windows. When he finds the one he wants, he can click it to close Activities and focus on that workspace's most recent window; he can click a specific app icon to focus on that app's most recent window, or he can click a window in the picker to focus it.
• Instead of clicking the workspace, he can also drag it up or down to change its order.
• He can click an app icon to focus its most recent window, same as now.
• Instead, he can drag it to the left edge to open "workspace state" and drop the icon on the workspace where he wants to open it.
• He can right-click an app to enter "window state". In it, there are thumbnails of the existing windows (regardless of which workspace they're in), a "new window option" and a "add to / remove from favourites" option.
• From there, he can click one of the windows to move to its workspace and focus it.
• He can also drag it to the left edge (open workspace state) and drop it on a workspace to move the window there.
• He can also press an "X" button at its corner to close it.
• He can click "new window" or drag it to the left to open the new window on a specific workspace.

Let's see what he can do, using the keyboard instead, after pressing the Super key. Ideally, this would open the Activities overlay and put the focus on the current app's icon.

• He can press up / down to focus other app icons, then enter to close Activities and focus that app: obviously icons in the current workspace would be closer, so reaching them would be faster than reaching icons from other workspaces. Which in my opinion makes a lot of sense.
• Instead, he can press left to open workspace state; from there, he can press up / down to move between workspaces. Once he's found the desired workspace:
• He can press enter to close overview and focus that workspace's most recent window.
• He can press right to return to app state (with that workspace's most recent icon being highlighted), then press up / down if he wants another app, then:
• Press enter to close Activities and focus that app's most recent window.
• Or press right again to open window state and choose a specific window from that app.
• Instead, he can press right to open window state; from there, he can press up / down to choose a specific window (or to open a new one) and press enter.

All these actions could be done without leaving the left area of the screen if you're using a mouse, and using only the direction and enter keys if you're using a keyboard. And you would have a better view of what's open where, because you would be using the whole screen instead of tiny thumbnails.