Hi, I've been using Gnome Shell all time since release 3.4 up to 3.8.
For now, I love my desktop environment. It's not yet perfect, but defenitely
close to it.
The way you switch between windows is very straightforward, you are swithing
between actual windows not using any extra entity such as taskbar. It offers
simple label at the bottom, that is easy to read and helps to distinguish
windows. It's 100% killer feature of the Shell.
Workspaces and Dash are quite intuitive, but do switch by their own.
If you draw a paralel with a real world: you have pencil(favourite
application) on different tables. On each table you have sheets of
paper(windows of pencil application). You probably pick pencil on the table
with sheets to draw on existing ones, but on table without them when you pick a
pencil, room you are in(Shell) will move your chair to table with last used
sheet. I think room has no right to move my chair to another table, this is
what I do when want to switch to another activity, but not to switch my
activities automatically. On an ampty table I will not wish to see all the
instruments used on another workspaces, but just favourite ones.
Appmenu is wrong by definition, being globalmenu by functionality. Designs
I've seen on a wiki are windows-agnostic(just basic actions there), but
implementation in applications ended to be not, due of nature of the API, that
allows to put there every single option or action that application has to
offer. Visually it looks that Shell is offering functionality, that belongs to
window. That kind of integration is confusing, because it separates some
options from an application window and [!]mixes that with an options, which
must be offered by Shell.
For example in Files: New Window, Preferences, Help and Quit are
window-agnostic thy can be provided by Shell's Appmenu, but Connect To Server,
Enter Adress and About really depend on focused window and can't be in Appmenu
by definition.
There are a lot of crazy of ideas I think would be interesting in Shell:
1 Activities overview
1.1 Recent should be zero page before All Applications pages (scrolling is
easier than toggling buttons, no extra mouse moves)
1.2 Add "Recent applications" label at the top, that will change to "All
applications: 1 of 4" if there is for example 4 app pages (better visual
feedback)
1.3 Replace workspaces with pages, dragging window will act like dragging
Android widgets (extra entity such as workspaces causes performance drop,
moving/creating issues)
1.3.1 Offer right click menu on empty space of workspace to move it
above/below
1.3.2 Offer window right-click action to move window to workspace
above/below, or create new workspace above/below
1.4 Make workspaces act like totally separate contexts to the dash. Dash will
indicate only apps that have windows on current workspace plus favourites,
including running light glow state (do not switch my activities automatically)
1.5 Dash icons focus on hover. Dash focus not disabling window thumbnail
focus(which is changes with arrow keys)
1.5.1 Pressing Tab in Activities immediatly focus on first item in Dash
1.5.2 Switching between dash items performs with a single Tab stroke
1.5.3 Draw border around windows of focused dash
app icon with color hue of it. Change window thumbnail focus to
recent used window of that application. Keyboard arrows/scrolling over
icon will now switch only between windows of that application
1.5.4 Hovering/focusing All Apps icon will toggle All Applications view.
Provide keyboard focus on first item of app view. Pressing Tab again will
return to Activities. Shift+Tab will go back on previous icon
1.5.5 Hovering empty space below/above dash or Esc returns to stock
Activities state
1.5.6 On a touchscreen first touch on already running app icon will act
like hover, second touch will act like click
1.6 Sort windows in recent order
1.6.1 Entering overview from keyboard will draw border around recent window
indicating keyboard focus
1.6.2 Mouse hover on other window will change focus
1.7 Clicking on dash icon/pressing Enter will switch to focused window
thumbnail of that application, or open new on that workspace if there is any.
1.8 Allow to switch workspaces/app pages with PgUp/PgDn keys or scrolling
over Activities button
1.9 Show close buttons for all windows (it's not dangerous or distracting to
user)
2 Menus
2.1 Move app's Preferences window into System Settings
(dialog/modals/separate windows suck at managing this on their own and requre
application launch)
2.2 Replace dash right-click menu and Appmenu with single Freedesktop
quicklist, which all DE's and applications shoud support.
2.2.1 Options provided there will be ONLY: New Window, New Private Window,
Preferences, Help, Add to/Remove from Favourites(provided by Shell itself), or
other options, that not requre to launch application first. This options must
never interact directly with current window.
2.2.2 Dash menu options = Appmenu options, no window list, no old-style Mac
global menu, nothing like that
2.2.3 Do not provide Quit option anywhere. It's more up to extensions to
provide that dangerous action
2.2.4 Provide Gear menu by all applications
3 Super+Tab. It's hard to choose needed window. Thumbnails are hardly
differentiable
3.1 Preview real window, which will raise to top at release, making other
real windows transparent
3.2 Limit to current workspace
TLDR: I will appreciate if you reject or approve some of these ideas with
good portion of explanation, or even if you ask me to file hundred bugs or draw
some wireframes to show-off my mad skillz :D
That's pretty much it. Thanks for everybody that is involved in Gnome, head
to the future!
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