[RAVE] Gnome 3's App Switcher: Ingenious!

[Cygnia]

I'm finding myself turning into a real fan of Gnome 3. No it's not perfect (yet) but I'm just really liking it a lot. Since there are so many [RANT]s on the forum, I thought I would start a [RAVE] to counter them.

I've complimented Gnome 3's Alt-Tab/Alt-~ App Switcher in other threads, but tonight I just noticed a downright ingenious touch: As I type I'm converting a folder with over 300 mp3's and m4a's to ogg using nautilus-sound-converter. So I have a nautilus window with two panes and the little progress indicator dialog box. Since that's going to take a while I create a new desktop and open Firefox. Long story short I occasionally want to check the progress of the conversion.

Instead of having to switch over to the other desktop each time though, in Gnome 3 all I have to do is Alt-Tab until the Nautilus icon is highlighted in the App Switcher. In about a second underneath the icon appear previews of both the Nautilus window and the Progress indicator, and the previews are totally live in real time! So literally all I have to do is press two keys to see the progress of the other application, and then Esc to exit out of the App Switcher and I'm back to what I was doing. Incredible.

The programmers and others who worked on Gnome 3 totally have the hats off thing from me. If any of you are reading this, thanks for all the work and please keep it coming!

[Evil_Bert]

Moved to Reviews, Rants and Things That Make You Scream.

[pete_1967]

Next desktop: Ctrl+Alt+RightArrow
Previous desktop: Ctrl+Alt+LeftArrow

Of course, I can customise my keyboard shortcuts to be anything I like, but I'm used to above combination. And I don't even have to lift my fingers from Ctrl+Alt while I move left and right, or around my desktops. So in which way Gnome 3's solution is better again?

And of course, Compiz did the live preview a long time ago if you're into all kind of eyecandy.

[Cygnia]

And I don't even have to lift my fingers from Ctrl+Alt while I move left and right, or around my desktops. So in which way Gnome 3's solution is better again?

Literally one hand instead of two seems better to me, and conceptually and in terms of "workflow" I like the idea of not having to switch over completely. As for the Compiz preview you would have to configure that in a really complicated Settings program (as I remember having tried to use it.)

Having said that your point is as valid for you as I think mine is for me. I'm the first to acknowledge that Gnome 3 is in its infancy and therefore missing many customizations and controls. (Screen savers anyone?) But still my point was that I'm really enjoying Fedora 15 with Gnome 3. I'm sorry to hear that you aren't.

[pete_1967]

Literally one hand instead of two seems better to me,

Missed the bit where I said I can set the key combination to what ever I want?

I'm sure some may feel that the G3's implementation is the bees knees of application switching - but it's still far from unique and new so I find it rather amusing that someone gets all excited about it like it hadn't been implemented before. And from the point of "workflow", it doesn't make slightest difference whether you switch to another workspace or not - in both cases, the application you are currently using is temporarily unavailable. Same goes to using switching between open applications in current desktop, you just change the focus and return back to one you're using. Only thing that is different is that it may look prettier on G3.

And in Compiz, or what ever the first desktop cube fancy pantsy thingy was called, there was no configuration required to show live previews when application switching with Alt+Tab was used.


I'm sorry to hear that you aren't.
Thank you for your kind consideration. Actually I stopped "enjoying Gnome" many, many, many Moons ago.

[gUrUr2]

Really?

Whatever gnome-shell and mutter provides in terms of window management was there in compiz and with a splash. Having used compiz for the last three years, the new setup felt like an unbelievable downgrade.

Also, in compiz you don't have to use two hands, you do if you want, but one can setup scale add-on, to click on corners, top, below, without clicking...I mean the next level of usability and functionality would be to plug into your brain. However, if you have not experienced, you cannot tell.

Now you can argue all about how it was hard to configure ( I cannot see that, but I understand that noobs would have difficulty), but since gnome people went all the way to creating the (un-holly mess) shell, I find it difficult to understand why they did not just provide a preconfigured package for compiz to be installed by default? All they had to do was to setup the schemas. Hell, I could it in my free time if I was onto what they were planning to do.