After using the GNOME Shell for a while to get used to it, I find the default Alt+Tab task switcher extremely frustrating. The main issue with issue with it is its grouping of windows by application and having to navigate the windows within a particular application using Alt+` rather than Alt+Tab. I do find the visual aspect of the grouping appealing, however.

What causes me to run into problems is that I often have multiple GVIM and/or Chrome windows open, along with a Terminal. If I run some commands in my Terminal, then edit some text in GVIM, pressing Alt+Tab easily switches me back to the last window I was using---the Terminal. However, say I use my terminal to pipe something into a new GVIM instance, look at that GVIM instance, then switch to another GVIM window that I have open in order to edit some source code. I want to switch to the previous window I was looking at, which was a GVIM instance. By muscle memory, I'll press Alt+Tab. But instead, oops! I'm looking at the terminal. I forgot I had to press Alt+`.

I don't want to have to keep mental note of whether the last window I focused
was within the same application or not. This totally kills my workflow, and I'm
constantly pressing the wrong shortcut.

There is an extension available at https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Extensions that does not group windows by application. However, it also does away with the grouping of windows by workspace, and I do like the grouping by workspace. Why have workspaces at all if they don't separate your windows? Other problems with this extension include the window previews being too small, the window list being just plain ugly, and the window list being difficult to use once you get too many windows.

As a result, I've had to resort to using the Activities window for any task switching, which is still a pain because I have to hunt for the window I want every time. This is a real drain on my productivity.

In order to fix what I think is a very disruptive error in usability, I think that there should at least be an option to give Alt+Tab the combined ability of Alt+`, as well. An idea I had would be to add this combined switcher as a third global keybinding after switch_group and switch_windows.

To clarify what I mean by combined ability, currently Alt+Tab switches through applications (but not the windows within an application), and Alt+` is needed to switch through the windows within an application. The combined switcher would switch through windows regardless of which application they belong to, ordered by the time they were last focused.