unity-design team mailing list archive

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad <joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxx>]

Den 05. mars 2012 17:01, skrev Mark Shuttleworth:
> Apps in the launcher are persistent and placed by the user. So the 
> Super-<n> convention is workable. But windows are ephemeral, not 
> "placed" by the user. So <key>-3 today won't give you the same window 
> as <key>-3 tomorrow. So there's no memory, no chance of it being usable.

That's not entirely true. Many users have very long lasting sessions. 
Mine often lasts for weeks, and windows will have the same order 
tomorrow and the day after, so there is memory. Having something like 
this might be appreciated by desktop ninjas everywhere. And very 
long-lasting sessions might become more common in the future, with 
virtual desktops, hot desking, etc. How often do you log out from or 
reboot your phone?

I have several monitors and typically have many open gedit instances. 
Switching between them is currently a lot less comfortable than 
switching between tabs, but using more windows has other benefits. I 
feel like I have to choose the least uncomfortable workflow. That's not 
good enough.

All the default tabbed applications in Ubuntu already does this; 
Nautilus, Gnome Terminal, Firefox, Thunderbird and Gedit. They allow you 
to use alt+num to switch between tabs. It's proven to be quite useful, 
even if it's not remembered between sessions. I always assumed that this 
was at least part of the inspiration for the nth-app navigation with 
super+num. I see no fundamental difference between windows in the scale 
view and tabs in the application GUI itself. As long as it doesn't 
disrupt anything, I think adding direct access to a certain window would 
be quite nice. To me, it's not a question of if, but how it should be done.

Adding it to the HUD might be cool. For instance, imagine that I have 
many open Empathy conversations. While I'm chatting with Aviv, I get a 
message from you. It shows up as a notification and the message 
indicator turns blue. I want to respond, so I tap Alt and enter "Mark". 
The HUD then displays [Empatthy icon] "Switch to > Mark Shuttleworth". I 
press enter, the correct window is focused and the message indicator 
goes back to white if it's the only unseen event. Sounds nice, doesn't it?

In the scale views (super+w and super+numnum) I think it'd be nice if we 
could use Alt+num the same way that tabbed applications does it. You 
should be able to reorganize windows by clicking and dragging them. As a 
usability improvement, when you press Alt while in that view, there 
should be a number above the window previews, just like when you press 
super and numbers appear on the launcher. You should also be able to do 
it without opening the spread view, but then by pressing Alt, tapping 
the button above tab and then enter a number.

It's not too far fetched?

--
Jo-Erlend Schinstad