GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 651022
Is hard to identify an app's window in Activities View and ALT-TAB
Last modified: 2013-08-17 20:01:51 UTC
If you have 6 app's windows the size of pre-views in Activities View is enough to identify the required window. If you have more than 6, staring from 8 and more windows to show in Activities View the size is too small to identify the correct one. In order to help the user to identify, at least the application, may be is useful to show the app's icon. Another way to help the user to select an application's window may be add a grouping feature, a way to click an area on the screen to show all windows for an application. Even better, group windows from different applications. This is, in a workspace when the user clicks over this area (may be a colored one, aside of the icon in the app luncher at left) hides the windows outside the group. Grouping applications in workspaces is useful, but most of the time is for applications related to a task, or group of tasks. If the task requires to open lot of PDF documents and more than one LibreOffice documents, the Activities View are useful, is better to use ALT-TAB. ALT-TAB, shows ALL applications in ALL workspaces, this doesn't help. In old GNOME 2.x, ALT-TAB shows just the apps in the workspace.
Created attachment 188546 [details] Lot of Applications windows in Activities View Activities View showing 8 windows. Its hard to find a window just from the image. You need to use the windows title. If the user have limited vision, windows title helps just a little. ALT-TAB view helps more, it shows application's icon and name and groups its windows showing the window's title.
Please don't use a single bugs for multiple unrelated suggestions. (In reply to comment #0) > In order to help the user to identify, at least the application, may be is > useful to show the app's icon. See bug 648994. > Another way to help the user to select an application's window may be add a > grouping feature, a way to click an area on the screen to show all windows for > an application. This came up recently on the list, but looks like we don't have a bug for it. We used to filter windows when right-clicking application icons in the dash, but it only really worked when we were displaying all workspaces at once (which was removed a while ago). > Even better, group windows from different applications. Something like https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/DesktopContexts (bug 579747)? > ALT-TAB, shows ALL applications in ALL workspaces, this doesn't help. In old > GNOME 2.x, ALT-TAB shows just the apps in the workspace. Some would see that as a deficiency of GNOME 2.x ;-) Anyway, bug 608946 looks related.
(In reply to comment #2) > Please don't use a single bugs for multiple unrelated suggestions. > > (In reply to comment #0) > > In order to help the user to identify, at least the application, may be is > > useful to show the app's icon. > > See bug 648994. > Yes shows app's icon is related to bug 648994, then this feature must me curry out by it. > > > Another way to help the user to select an application's window may be add a > > grouping feature, a way to click an area on the screen to show all windows for > > an application. > > This came up recently on the list, but looks like we don't have a bug for it. > We used to filter windows when right-clicking application icons in the dash, > but it only really worked when we were displaying all workspaces at once (which > was removed a while ago). > > > > Even better, group windows from different applications. > > Something like https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/DesktopContexts (bug 579747)? > Desktop contexts are an usefull idea, I performn my tasks like that, moving windows related to a task I'm working on to a workspace. Some times I'm working on different tasks with different windows applications to perform it. I never work in two task at the same time, just work on one, when I have a free-time to work on other task I switch to the workspace with the applications to work on it. But some times I have lot of PDF, lot of standards i.e., as reference documents to perform my task. Even that references are related each to other, PDF with standars for communications, other ones for data models, and other ones for products description, all just to analyzes how many products meets my requirements for potencial buy. In this case if I can group that applications' windows I can switch quickly to the document I need to consult as required. <SEARCH BOX> <GROUP 1> <GROUP 2> ---- <GROUP N> <dashboard app icon 1> <thumbnail 1> <thumbnail 2> <thumbnail 3> <dashboard app icon 2> <thumbnail 4> <thumbnail 5> <thumbnail 6> <dashboard app icon 3> <thumbnail 7> <thumbnail 8> <thumbnail 9> This figure show a possible arrange for Groups buttons when Activities view is shown. Down of search box or aside. When Group 1 is activated, all applications in that group is shown, hiding other ones. Normally all thumbnails for all applications are shown. Adding a window to a group could work like to move it to a different workspace, using drag&drop. Named Group could be useful too. Group representation could be just a colored box, may be configurable by the user. May be adding an colored icon in the bottom left/right, of the thumbnail to show a window association to a group is useful, when all thumbnails are shown. > > > ALT-TAB, shows ALL applications in ALL workspaces, this doesn't help. In old > > GNOME 2.x, ALT-TAB shows just the apps in the workspace. > > Some would see that as a deficiency of GNOME 2.x ;-) > > Anyway, bug 608946 looks related. Yes is realated. I'll follow or get feedback to bug 608946, for ALT-TAB improvements.
(In reply to comment #2) > > ALT-TAB, shows ALL applications in ALL workspaces, this doesn't help. In old > > GNOME 2.x, ALT-TAB shows just the apps in the workspace. > > Some would see that as a deficiency of GNOME 2.x ;-) I wouldn't. Otherwise somebody would have filed a bug and it would have been fixed in GNOME 2.x. Plus that's how all other WM's work. > Anyway, bug 608946 looks related. More like bug #621287.
Created attachment 189039 [details] Mockup for NavigationApp idea NavigationApp (sorry for the name) could be a functionality as described on Coment #3. Has to mockups: 1) Shows an icon navigation for all running applications at the current workspace, when mouse is over the icon all apps in the current workspace is hiden in order to show just the app's window. The problem will rise when an user have more than four (4) windows and the problem returns: thumbnails are too small to identify the required. 2) Shows a group navigation user must move windows, by drag and drop, to a required group. When the user want to see all "Doc" related windows move mouse over it to see them, hiding not related ones. This is like a "subworkspace" concept to arrange all applications you need to perform a task without too small thumbnails to select for. This can help the user with multiple task: 1) work stuff 1: Sales 2) work stuff 2: Technical Support 3) Development: help your favorite free software 4) Music: manage your music or... Just for Task 3, most of the time you have chat windows, terminal, IED, more than one Documentation pages on web and Yelp. Having more than 4 windows, making hard to switch between windows. You don't want to see windows from other tasks in the current workspace in order to help yourself to focus on the task your are working on.
I've discovered mouse wheel move over a thumbnail enlarge it to see its contents. I think this facility must be documented!!! It could helps to reduce the problem described in this Bug, but steel you need to try and error, when searching for a window.
*** Bug 663485 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This extension adds what I find an easier way to identify windows: https://github.com/sustmi/gnome-shell-extensions-sustmi/tree/master/windowoverlay-icons
I've switched from small screens (laptop) to desktop one. Recently my new machine at work have a 21" monitor using a 1680x1050 resolution, makes so easy to work in Activities Overview. I have 16 windows at the same time in the same virtual desktop arranged in a matrix of 4 x 4, and is NOT TO HARD to find windows, because the details of the thumbnails are enough to identify the one I want to switch to. Then I can conclude is a matter of screen size/resolution problem. Depending on the number of windows opened the size of the thumbnails are smaller with less details to identify a the one you need. If you have a huge monitor with high resolution (like in workstations or even a desktop computer at home) modes you can open lot of windows without lost details in thumbnails, but if you have small monitor with high/low resolution the details a user can identify are less or hard. Are there a way to identify this problem and switch from the actual Overview behavior to one showing auxiliary decorations? like icons (see Comment 8), to help users to identify the window because the detail is not enough to find it. An algorithm to identify hard to identify thumbnails due to less details, based on the monitor features (size) and used resolution, may be adding some recommendations to use higher resolutions if available.
Hi Daniel. Thanks for the report. The use of app icons in the overview is covered by bug 634599. If you have other issues or suggestions, please search to see if they have already been reported, and then file *one bug per issue*. Right now this report is a bit of a jumble, and I think it's all covered by other bugs. Thanks for taking the time to get in touch, and I look forward to seeing your comments on other reports. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 634599 ***