unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jamu Kakar <jkakar@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ryan,

On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 8:31 PM, Ryan Prior <ryanprior@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Pippa Kyle <pippa.kyle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Any thoughts on this, and what would be good for Unity?
>
> For power-users, the more important thing is that the window switcher
> applet appear and respond immediately. On my multi-core
> name-brand-graphics-card machine, it takes about a quarter-second for
> the applet to show after I strike the tab-key. That response time is
> totally unacceptable - it shouldn't take more than 0.03 seconds (1
> "frame" of standard 30FPS video) for the UI to respond to a keyboard
> shortcut, and ideally should take less time than that. If something in
> the current system makes that delay necessary, we should change the
> system enough that an immediate response can be given.
>
> And let's be honest, it's mostly power-users who know and utilize the
> alt-tab shortcut for window management.

This behaviour was bothering me, too.  I found that there's a 200ms
delay, by default.  You can change it in CompizConfig Settings Manager:

- Go to 'Static Application Switcher'.

- Click 'Behaviour'.

- Set 'Popup Window Delay' to 0.

I have no idea why anyone would want a delay for this operation.  I
guess it's so that a quick Alt-Tab doesn't show the switcher, but I
was finding that, more often than not, nothing would happen when I hit
Alt-Tab very quickly.  Application switching is nice and snappy with
the delay set to 0.

Thanks,
J.