GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 650158
Make alt-tab specific to the screen the pointer is in
Last modified: 2015-02-27 20:58:50 UTC
This is a suggested improvement to the multi-monitor setup. With the extra screen windows always being there, they are effectively present in every workspace. This causes extra noise to appear in the alt-tab chooser which is already full of noise from other workspaces. I would very much prefer to see the windows in the extra screen in the window chooser only when I'm looking at the extra screen, and be able to choose it while looking at the extra screen, without the need to look at the main screen to select it and then back to the extra screen. Perhaps there's a better way to handle this, I'm certainly not tied to this specific solution, I'd just like to fix the discontinuity that always disturbs me, of trying to switch to a window that's in the extra screen by looking at the main screen.
Sounds like a dup of bug #621287 to me. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 621287 ***
(In reply to comment #1) > Sounds like a dup of bug #621287 to me. Nope. This is about alt+tab behavior in a dual monitor setup.
Alt-tab does get awkward in multi-monitor mode, especially since the 2nd monitor behaves so differently (no workspaces in default config). I frequently have 2 windows I'm working on on the main display. The 2nd monitor is far enough out of view that it's not in-my-face obvious that there are other windows around. Alt-tab'ing frequently results in a window on the 2nd display getting focused. That happens with very little visual cue to what's happened, so I'll end up typing my password (for example) into some random IM window instead of the terminal I have "sudo" open on :)
Created attachment 202882 [details] [review] Show the Alt-Tab popup on the monitor containing the window that has the focus Is there something wrong with the super stupid patch that I am enclosing? It seems to work for me, the Alt-Tab popup is now shown on the monitor containing the window which has the focus.
Alessandro: Wrong problem. The problem here is that (for example) pressing and releasing alt-tab once can often cause a window on the non-focused monitor to become focused. It's not directly related to where the alt-tab popup is located.
Ah, damn, I misread the problem, sorry! Still, I think that the behaviour after patching helps using Alt-Tab when there are multiple monitors.
Alessandro: Can you file that patch as a separate bug?
Sure, I just need some evening time and I'll do it!
Comment on attachment 202882 [details] [review] Show the Alt-Tab popup on the monitor containing the window that has the focus $:andre\> patch --no-backup-if-mismatch -p1 < patch patching file js/ui/altTab.js Hunk #1 FAILED at 87. 1 out of 1 hunk FAILED -- saving rejects to file js/ui/altTab.js.rej See https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell/tree/js/ui/altTab.js#n515 Hence setting 'needs-rework' as patch does not apply cleanly.
Comment on attachment 202882 [details] [review] Show the Alt-Tab popup on the monitor containing the window that has the focus Rejecting the patch according to the design feedback in bug 722684
Also closing the bug - there's no point in keeping it open when we have different plans ... *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 722684 ***