GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 627783
Enable Alt+Tab in Activities View
Last modified: 2012-10-03 13:26:52 UTC
Version: git pull on 2010-08-24 I think it could be confusing for users that Alt+Tab only works when one is on a workspace, but not when one is in the activities view.
I also find this highly confusing. I can also confirm the behavior on 3.0 and 3.1.90.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that volume and other media keys as well as brightness control also don't work.
*** Bug 645338 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Rewriting here the comment I wrote in bug 609959, since Bastien appropriately reminded me it wasn't the right place. > > Why is alt-tab ignored on purpose? It's not as though it has some other > > meaning in that view. > > What meaning does it have in the overview? If you press Super and then press > Alt+Tab, what do you want to happen? I would personally want alt-tab in the overview to circle through windows much like it does out of the overview. However, out of the overview, alt-tab opens this kind of OSD "list of icons with previews of windows". Inside the overview, I would like it to simply highlight a window, then highlight the next one, etc... Then I could press "enter" or "space" to switch to exit the overview, with that highlighted window coming into focus. That would improve the keyboard navigation of the overview, and allow switching windows in a very similar fashion both in and out of the overview. I'm sure a designer could explain to me how my proposal is wrong though. :)
Alt-tab cycles through applications, not windows... Another issue with this - alt-tab starts off from the current application and (since it works according to a cycle) lets you return to it. You obviously don't have an application selected when you are in the overview, and the alt-tab switcher would require a way to let you exit back to the overview. So, yeah, I don't think that this would work.
(In reply to comment #5) > Alt-tab cycles through applications, not windows... True, which is enough to make my proposal above fall apart if alt-tab in the overview must behave like alt-tab out of the overview. :-/ > Another issue with this - alt-tab starts off from the current application and > (since it works according to a cycle) lets you return to it. You obviously > don't have an application selected when you are in the overview, Start with top-left and work left to right then top to bottom? Alternatively, can't the order of the stack of applications/windows (along with which one is currently focused) be kept when going to the overview? > and the > alt-tab switcher would require a way to let you exit back to the overview. I don't think releasing alt should select an application window and directly exit the overview. That's why I had suggested to use "enter" or "space" to do that. > So, yeah, I don't think that this would work. To tell the truth, my main concern is to have a good keyboard navigation in the overview, it doesn't have to be alt+tab if it's too problematic. In the overview, how could the user select/highlight a window (without leaving the overview) only with the keyboard?
(In reply to comment #6) > (In reply to comment #5) > > Alt-tab cycles through applications, not windows... > > True, which is enough to make my proposal above fall apart if alt-tab in the > overview must behave like alt-tab out of the overview. :-/ Yes I think it should behave the same. ... > To tell the truth, my main concern is to have a good keyboard navigation in the > overview, it doesn't have to be alt+tab if it's too problematic. > > In the overview, how could the user select/highlight a window (without leaving > the overview) only with the keyboard? See bug 644306. I'm going to close this as wontfix, since I don't see how we are going to make alt-tab work with the overview, and we can fix keyboard navigation by other means. Hope that's OK.
Hello! Since my bug https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=645338 was marked as a duplicate of this bug I don't like seeing this closed as wontfix. ;-) My problem was that pressing Alt-Tab (or Alt-Key-above-tab) while in overview simply doesn't do anything. Can't we just close the overview and initiate the normal Alt-Tab procedure? It's just that we won't have to press "Esc" before pressing Alt-Tab - fixing this situation: "Let's switch to this other application ..." <Windows-Key> " hm - where is it - maybe Alt-Tab? " <Alt-Tab> " hm - doesn't work - maybe Overview-problem? Close it? " <Esc> <Alt-Tab> " Ah - there it is... " Same for Alt-Tab, Alt-Key-above-Tab, Volume+-, Brightness+-, Alt+F2 (Brightness and Alt+F2 already work in 3.4).
(In reply to comment #8) ... > My problem was that pressing Alt-Tab (or Alt-Key-above-tab) while in overview > simply doesn't do anything. ... I don't see this as much of a problem, tbh. Alt-tab is for switching between applications - doesn't really make sense if you're not in an app to begin with. ... > Can't we just close the overview and initiate the normal Alt-Tab procedure? ... That would be a rather unpleasant transition in my opinion.
I think we shouldn't only concentrate on what makes sense from a designer's point of view. Muscle memory is hard to fight and me and my muscles don't care which mode we're in when we want to change to a different application.
(In reply to comment #10) > ... my muscles don't care > which mode we're in when we want to change to a different application. Yes. And it's changing *to* an application. Doesn't matter where we come from. On the other hand, when I'm in overview I'm still *coming from* the last application I used. (In reply to comment #9) > (In reply to comment #8) > > Can't we just close the overview and initiate the normal Alt-Tab procedure? > > That would be a rather unpleasant transition in my opinion. Yes, can't really imagine how it would look like. But there should be a way to remove the Esc-Button-Press from the workflow.