"Open application window on a new workspace above" - feature or extension request

[Martin Seifert <martinseifert fastmail fm>]

Dear Gnome-Shell-Developers,

Please excuse the wall of text, but I am so happy with the Gnome-Shell
that I want to give you some feedback. You find my feature request at
the bottom of this mail, so you can easily skip the "spam".

First let me thank you for all the hard mindstorming and coding work you
put into Gnome3. Using Gnome-Shell for a few weeks now I cannot wipe
that smile from my face whenever I have to switch between running
applications. Task bars always made me sick, with more than three or
four applications running at once they always get overcrowded. All I
could do to feel comfortable again then was to close some open windows,
which on the other hand had serious drawbacks when returning to that
particular task later. 

Now the task bar is gone and much better ways to switch between tasks
are implemented. I really love to quickly switch between running
applications by clicking on their highlighted icons in the dash. As soon
as I have more windows around, Expose becomes handy and while I am
working on the keyboard, your implementation of Alt-Tab also is just
sugar sweet. Now with that workhorse of a desktop I don't feel
overwhelmed by open applications anymore and therefore keep them open
until I am finished. From some point of view, there is nothing
revolutionary about Gnome-Shell and equivalents to most features were
availiable before, it just feels seamless and intuitive now. As soon as
I have to think about my next steps in desktop usage I get annyoyed and
feel uncomfortable, because stuff like window management shouldn't take
my attention away from the things I really want to do. 

With Gnome-Shell it is also the first time that I am able to benefit
from using several workspaces. Starting applications on a new workspace
by Middle Click proved to be very handy, I really love this feature and
use it very often to get my task oriented workspaces settled. The
workspace overview on the right of the Shell avoids the overwhelming
disorientation I always faced when trying to get my work organized that
way under Gnome2. Getting an overview when feeling lost is organic and
intuitive now, you just begin with the same internalized first step it
takes to start or switch applications or to search documents. 

Now I don't count mouse clicks or mouse movements and how much of them
it takes to get me where I want. As long as the next step always feels
organic and comes intuitively, it doesn't take my attention away from my
work. Gnome3 is a huge improvement here and for me there is no more
"panic" now, no more annoying thinking about how to get back into
control, just pushing the mouse to the top left corner or hitting
<Alt><F1> (unfortunately my keyboard lacks the Meta-Key) and I am on
track, although I would love to have some way of keyboard navigation
into the workspace overview as well. Maybe <Ctrl>>Alt><Left> to get from
the window overview into the workspace overview would be a nice
addition, as <Ctrl><Alt><Up/Down> already does the workspace switching
nicely when on the keyboard. However as with the task bar before, better
distinction and organization in Gnome3 made it possible for me to master
the choas instead of restricting myself to one workspace with an
overseeable amount of open windows and that is just a real desktop
revolution for me.

There is one serious problem I have with Gnome-Shell, using old-school
desktop environments (I sometimes have to boot into Windows 7 for
example) feels very uncomfortable now and I hope they catch up soon. ;)

----------------------

So here is my common workspace usage, my problem and what I would like
to see implemented as a solution:

I always have Firefox opened on workspace 1 and Evolution on workspace 2
and all other tasks get their windows opened on one of the following
workspaces.

If I close Firefox for some reason, it's workspace becomes empty and is
removed, so Evolution is now on the first workpace, all other workspaces
follow in row.

Now if I want Firefox back, I can open it on workspace 1 side by side
with Evolution or open it on a new workspace at the end of the
workspaces in row. No matter what, from there on it becomes a painful
drag and drop journey to get my old order back.

What I would like to see is an (optional) feature or extension that
allows me to open an application not on a new workspace at the end of
all existing workspaces, but on a new workspace above the currently
selected workspace. 

Best regards
Martin