(In reply to comment #0)
> We currently have a control-alt-tab popup that has an icon representation of
> the gnome 2 panel and is labeled "Panel".  It really shouldn't have either of
> those things.

Either? I agree the icon sucks, but "Panel" is the right label for that UI element isn't it? If not, what is? (The name is more important than the icon, for a11y purposes.)

As for what icon should be there, I was playing around with using ClutterClones (so the "icon" would actually be the "Activities" button and part of the app menu), but it doesn't really look quite right. Another possibility would be to ditch the icons entirely and have some text-only UI. Or, make new icons from scratch (although we'll eventually need Panel, Message Tray, Dash, Applications, Windows, and Search).

> I guess we probably should be showing the message tray in there too?

Yeah, but at the moment you wouldn't be able to do anything after focusing it, so I didn't bother including it there yet.

bug 618887 includes a patch that changes the panel icon from "gnome-panel" to "start-here", which has a proper symbolic version. The current start-here-symbolic is the gnome foot, but that seems like a icon theme problem?

My current set of Ctrl-Alt-Tab icons, which were the best of the currently-available options, is:

  Panel: start-here (GNOME foot). Seems like the right choice of icon name,
    just the wrong graphic currently

  Dash: user-bookmarks (a star). The Dash is like application bookmarks...
    (I don't love this one.)

  Applications: system-run (gears). The most generically application-y icon

  Windows: text-x-generic (generic document icon). There were no good
    "window" icons, so I went with a "document" icon

  Search: edit-find (magnifying glass). Yay! This one totally works!

  Message Tray: dialog-information (lightbulb). The tray provides
    information, and some system notifications even use this same
    lightbulb icon

The only remaining issue of this bug is having two good icons for the top panel and the message tray, but I'd prefer them all to symbolically represent what they are, based on the current icon style (simple, float, white on black):

- Top Panel: a rectangle outline aligned at the top of the icon box
- Dash: a rectangle outline aligned to the left of the icon box with a couple of rounds in it (~= launchers)
- Applications: now we have the Apps icon, use it again, but pure white (but for me the gear means running a command to me? certainly not an application)
- Windows: a couple of rectangle outlines representing the view selector
- Message Tray: a rectangle outline aligned at the bottom of the icon box with two squares in it, or a badge

What do you think? I'm no much jimmac/aday/lapo/<insert your favorite designer here> but I could work on such icons. Is this even wanted?

Let's try and use icons from the standard theme.

- Top panel: emblem-system-symbolic
- Dash: current icon is fine
- Applications: view-grid-symbolic
- Message tray: user-available-symbolic

The only thing missing from that is the icon for the windows view.

Created attachment 229431 [details]
What it looks like

This is indeed way better!

Come one, a last one for the windows and we can forget about this old bug ;)

emblem-documents-symbolic would be a bit better than what we currently have for the window selector.

Created attachment 229460 [details]
What it looks like

Updated look.

Created attachment 229461 [details] [review]
ctrl-alt-tab: use better icons

The top panel and message tray icons were by default a gnome foot and
are replaced by better ones. The applications icon is now using the
symbolic apps icon of the dash, and the windows icon is also improved.

Comment on attachment 229461 [details] [review]
ctrl-alt-tab: use better icons

This is a definite improvement. Thanks for picking it up, Stephane.