unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jason Gerard DeRose <jderose@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 8:13 AM, Bilal Akhtar <bilalakhtar@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I filed bug [1] in unity today, and it was marked 'opinion' by sabdfl as
> it needed more discussion before it could be implemented.
>
> The current way of switching between windows of the same app is
> time-consuming. The launcher icon has to be clicked twice for the
> 'spread' compiz view to get activated, and then we switch between windows.
>
> Alongside this, it would be good to have a numbered list of running
> windows of an app, in its launcher icon's quicklist. This list would be
> separated from the rest of the quicklist items by a separator line. An
> example of such an implementation is in Gnome-Shell.

You raise some very good points.

I personally think "hidden windows" are the fundamental usability
problem with the Unity Launcher, just as they are with the OSX Dock.
Observing people using OSX, this is the snag that seems to catch
people most often, especially when using a browser... a new window
opens, and the user is confused as to where their "other stuff" went.

The quicklist seems like a good option for making it quicker to switch
between windows, but it doesn't help with the
visibility/discoverability issue... you still have to open the
quicklist first to know that there is "other stuff" that can be
switched to.

I think using a count overlay on the launcher icon when there are 2 or
more windows would help a lot, but that means the count couldn't be
used for anything else, IMHO... multiple counts on the icons are going
to overload them way too much, desensitize people to them.

My 2 cents.  :)

> Awaiting your comments,
>
> Bilal Akhtar
>
> [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/740862
>
> --
> Bilal Akhtar - Ubuntu Developer <bilalakhtar@xxxxxxxxxx>
> IRC nick: cdbs
>
>
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