[Ayatana] How to handle multi-window launcher icons

[David Prieto <frandavid100@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

One of the few problems I have with Unity is that there is no way to perform window-specific actions from the launcher: everything is app-specific. I can press the launcher icon to focus an app's most recent window, but I can't focus a specific window. I can't minimize a window by clicking the launcher icon, see an app's different windows without focusing it, or launch a new window.



I propose replacing Unity's current behaviour when you hover on a launcher icon (where you only get the app's name) with something like this: http://imgur.com/1cP0B.png

• When you hover the cursor over Unity's launcher icon, you get a preview of all the open windows belonging to that app.
• If one of them is the active window, it has some kind of visual indication (in the mockup it has an orange box around).
• You can click the active window to minimize it, or click an inactive window to focus it.
• You can right-click a window to get a contextual menu, where you can perform operations such as minimize, maximize, close, send to another workspace...
• You can click a button (in the mockup, located at the left) in order to open a new window for that app.
• You can drag that specific window, which solves the problem raised by Mark Shuttleworth (https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/667245/comments/10) about dragging launcher icons to other workspaces.

I would like the Ayatana team to consider implementing along the lines.