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 <
[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Rovanion Luckey
> <[email protected]> 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
> _______________________________________________
> gnome-shell-list mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
>
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