Another thing to consider here is some sort of optional "bottom panel".  But that's kind of a "nuclear option" in a way.

(In reply to comment #0)
> * Have a keybinding to pop up the application well over the cursor

Variations 
 -  Instead of application well over the cursor, just do the mousable-tab-popup in the center of the screen
 - Make the keybinding the Super key held down for more than 0.5 seconds (you could start mousing toward the center of the screen while waiting for it)

(In reply to comment #0)
> The old GNOME 2 taskbar allowed mouse selection of a particular window with
> just some motion + click.  The overview "feels" less convenient to me (and I
> don't have metrics here).
> 
> An open question is whetehr the new alt-tab design will obviate this problem.
> 
> But some other random ideas:
> * Shorten the enter-overview animation time

Well that does not help much IMHO because the overview seems to distract to much from the actual work.

The overview should focus on starting apps, search and open recent documents, the app switcher should be placed in a easier to access location, because it is used way to often.

Also to make the overview suitable for the "start apps and open documents" case we have to open it on start up.

> * Have a keybinding to pop up the application well over the cursor

Well that is exactly the new alt-tab, which is fine for keyboard navigation but we need something that is usable with just the mouse and easy to discover for new users without instructions.

> * Right click on application menu makes an app/window selector

Yeah that would be very fast to access, without using additional space like a dock or the old taskbar. 
The only problem I see here is if new users would be able to find it ie. doing a right click there without having someone to tell them about it. (this is also an issue for the "click and hold" behavior on the current appWheel btw).

Would be useful to characterize these task switches/interruptions before we consternate much more on this issue.

(In reply to comment #4)
> Would be useful to characterize these task switches/interruptions before we
> consternate much more on this issue.

What do you mean by that?

Well currently (panel + metacity) you can switch to apps much faster than with the shell design.

You point and click on the panel done.

Currently you have to do:

1) Switch to overview
2) Select the window and click on it

or

1) Switch to the overview
2) Click and hold on the appicon
3) Select the window from the list

or

1) Alt-Tab to the app
2) Click on the icon
3) select the window you want to switch to

All of this options are slower than "point and click" on the bottom panel, and switching to the overview somehow gets you "away from your work environment".

Thinking about it we already do have a solution for this ... the live-crumbs branch does provide the "easy to access app switcher" and at the same time does not use any extra space like a dock or an extra panel.

Maybe we should reconsider rejecting it.

Jon what where the reasons for doing so?

Currently, you can also get a window switcher replacement using alt+tab.

Let me explain:

when you hit alt+tab, you get a dialog which allows you to switch applications, the same way the metacity one allows you switching windows. But there is an extra to it: the current alt+tab implementation allows the user to click an application and select a window *using its mouse*, window list applet style.

Hence to me the best replacement for the window list would probably be alt+tab, maybe with an extra button somewhere to trigger it with one's mouse (a button next to the current app name indicator in the top panel?)

With the fix for bug 593844 using the overview for window switching turns out to work well for me, after using it for some hours.

Another option would be to go the way of widgets/plasmoids/gadgets or whatever each system called them. They could also replace the sidebar (which for my convenience in on the wrong side of the screen - I like and use the left of the screen already for a row of desktop icons. I dislike how they are "pushed" when there is a sidebar - they go under my open applications and are hidden instead of showing to the side).

The quicklaunch could be turned into a widget, placed on some side, shaped to be horizontal or vertical - I would think a horizontal one on the right side of the screen could be good - three icons wide and then new icons create new rows.

Same with the clock - when closed, the analogue clock is useless. when opened, it is mere duplication of the top bar which has the time in a more accessible location. It could be made into a resizeable widget which may look better (and this could/would make the time in the top bar useless).

BTW, in the alt-tab, I find it very difficult to distinguish one window from another.  Another issue, and this should probably be a separate bug report, and that is the fact that focus doesn't seem to quite work when I select one.  This is from the gnome-shell from yesterday (Wednesday Oct 21).

sri

I like to switch apps via overview mode. It does not interrupt me from my work. (I have only three or so windows simultaneously on a workspace)

But my hand is used to move downwards to switch apps. :)  So I all the time start moving it towards the bottom of the screen and only then upwards to the upper-left corner.

Maybe a "magic bottom" :) for application switching would be Ok ?

P.S. I also like the idea of making application title a drop-down list (or whatever) of open applications.

P.P.S. This page http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/CheatSheet was sufficient for me to start using GNOME Shell features. So maybe such a slideshow or a video would be enough to let a new user discover not so obvious features ?

I second the complain about Alt-Tab switcher. Even further - it's hard not only to distinguish windows, but also to understand what's happening when you try to switch to the second FireFox (for example) window and how to accomplish that task. :)

(In reply to comment #10)
> BTW, in the alt-tab, I find it very difficult to distinguish one window from
> another.  

A reply posted to William Jon Mccann's blog yesterday made me think of a neat way to squeeze both a taskbar and launcher into Gnomeshell.  William Owen left a comment suggesting that the App Well be turned sideways into a column in the overlay, so that on the desktop it could serve as a retractable launcher.  (Please see his original blog posting, which I reference heavily: http://ywwg.com/wordpress/?p=717).

I ran with that idea, and made two mockups that use this vertical app well as a taskbar.

Idea #1 (Pic): http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2803/4111218096_6b8983b1e4_o.jpg
Idea #1 is very much like a sideways Win7 taskbar (which functions very much like Alt-Tab), except that instead of making non-focused windows disappear, it would make all non-focused parts of the screen (desktop and other windows) fall back some distance and use a Gaussian blur.  The highlighted window would also cast a much longer shadow than usual.

Idea #2 (Pic): http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2803/4111218136_16f5165fc3_o.jpg
Idea #2 combines Win7 style application grouping/launcher functionality, but instead of showing one window at a time, all open windows for that app would all be displayed OSX expose style.  As above, the desktop and non-highlighted windows would fall back a distance, get Gaussian blur, and be over-shadowed.  

Putting the App Well sideways could solve a couple of issues.  For one, it basically becomes the side panel, whose function (other than showing applets) was basically to replicate the app well as a launcher anyway.  It solves the issue of how to visualize the side panel transitioning into Overlay mode, since it would be a visual element of both, it could just slide into place.  It also gives much more vertical room to Places and Documents, while only requiring a little extra horizontal room, but not much since the icons seem to be smaller. 

The biggest negative is that the originally proposed side-panel was supposed to focus on Applets, not just be a launcher.  But some other metaphor could be used, for applets, such as a separate applet overlay, or even better, having the desktop flip over and using the reverse side.

This would not duplicate functionality from the overlay, because it would just allow a tool from the Overlay to overlap onto the desktop.  Also, just as Alt-Tab shows all apps even from other desktops, the App Well does too.  When same apps are used across workspaces, perhaps multiple workspaces could be shown w/o going to Overlay -- so this solution would basically be a mousable Alt-Tab.  (Speaking of which, I filed this bug yesterday: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=602048  I now think it is a dupe of this thread -- sorry.)

Idea #3: number the windows in overview mode, let me select windows by its number. The flow would be:

 - Press Windows key
 - Identify your windows
 - Press its number (with Ctrl, perhaps)

If window order won't change much, then make Windows+<num> to switch to the coresponding window. That's what I used to do to switch tabs within a browser.

I like the ideas exposed by Brian Fleeger (I think implementing the number 2 could be awesome and I think is a very good solution to the concern of a lot of people about the switching application issue on gnome 3). 

Here I want just to propose a little variation to this idea.

1) I think the App Well should be located on the top and not on one side. 

2) The App Well should be launched by clicking or hovering the mouse`s pointer 
over the "icon/name-app-area" on the Gnome-shell bar
   a) this "icon/name-app-area" is the only element of the gnome-shell bar that do nothing (activities launch overlay mode, the clock give access to the calendar, at the right there is a notification area)
   b) this "icon/name-app-area" is redundant the windows title-bar already tell you the name of the aplication that it is on top, and of course you already now which a application is on top, because you are looking at it :-)

3) as Brian indicates the App Well should also be present on the overlay mode but it should be located on the top. 

4) the Left menu on overlay mode should be re-arrange
    a) the search box (an all the menus) should be moved down in order to make room to the App Well on top
    b) the applications menu should disappear (because now the App Well have this function)
    c) in the overlay mode the App Well could also display the most-often-used-application (actives apps on the left highlighted,  "most-often-used-app on the right, both group separated by a some blank space) and should reflect the result of the performed search (just like the applications menu do now)

5) clicking on the "icon/name-app-area" with the left button should display all the active applications and may be right-clicking could display only the other instances of the same application (for example different OpenOffice.org documents)

thank you.

There are currently no plans to change the design before GNOME 3.  I'm going to close this to get it off the radar.  If someone wants the best approach here would be to make an extension with an alternate design, and see how it works.