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List:       kwin
Subject:    Re: Alt+Tab improvements
From:       Lubos Lunak <l.lunak () suse ! cz>
Date:       2007-03-29 19:52:53
Message-ID: 200703292152.53990.l.lunak () suse ! cz
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On čt 29. března 2007, Philip Falkner wrote:
> On Thursday 29 March 2007 08:16:07 Lubos Lunak wrote:
> >  What I'd like to have would be a system that'd work well for #2 and
> > would be also good for #1 (this would be simply a default, effects could
> > try their own ways). Let's say, without thinking that much about details,
> > that one would press Ctrl+Alt+Tab and in some Expose-like way all windows
> > in some good arrangement. Then I could use arrows to select a window or
> > filter-them-as-I-type and hit Enter to activate the one I want. The same
> > would be also displayed for normal Alt+Tab go-to-most-recent if one holds
> > Alt for longer, again with some suitable arrangement. Things like whether
> > to show windows from all desktops or only current one, KDE-style or
> > CDE-style walking and similar would be selected either by options or
> > possibly some of them could also have separate shortcuts (e.g. all
> > desktops vs current desktop can be both useful).
>
> Hmm.  I'm assuming that the default non-effect tabbox is not going to be
> able to use window thumbnails.  I know kompose can do it, but it's also (as
> I remember) quite slow at it.  And if we are compositing, then surely
> having an effect handle the thumbnails would be better, especially with
> OpenGL being able to accelerate it.

 Right, no thumbnails without compositing, it's either doing them properly or 
not at all, no ugly hacks needed here.

> Without thumbnails, how useful is an expose-like layout?  At this point,
> all I can think of that we have to distinguish windows are icon, title,
> application "group", and location on screen.  Taking up more (all?) of the
> screen to have a big tile view instead of a list is visually disruptive,
> which may be bad for immediate most-recent switching, but for more general
> task-switching is ok.  It does win us bigger icons, possibly longer window
> titles, and better use of dead space to separate windows.  So, for example,
> we could have the konqueror windows clustered together, while konsole is
> further away from them.

 Well, non-composited switcher is part of the problem I guess :). I think all 
switchers could share the underlying mechanism of the Tabbox class if 
possible, but visual representations will need to be separate.

> The addition of arrow-key navigation is good, and complementary to
> mouse-wheel selection; perhaps even changing mouse-click to activating
> instead of selecting, and mouse-hover to selecting (maybe).  But as for
> as-I-type filtering/searching, does the holding of Alt interfere?  Is there
> any keyboard layout or input method that uses Alt to make characters?  If
> there isn't, great, but even then typing isn't as easy with one finger
> holding Alt down.  So either this would need an activator after the initial
> Alt+Tab, change the behaviour of Alt+Tab to not require the held Alt (which
> would be different from how it works elsewhere), or have another activation
> mechanism (like the Ctrl+Alt+Tab) that allows filtering.  I dislike that
> third option, but the other two don't really appeal either...

 That's why I used in the example Ctrl+Alt+Tab for #2 and Alt+Tab for #1. I 
think the best option is having one shortcut for Alt+Tab switching the way 
it's now and another shortcut which activates the mode and in which another 
action needs to be taken to leave the mode.

> >  Of course, this description uses vague descriptions "some Expose-like
> > way", "some good arrangement" etc. that'd need some thinking about.
> > That's what I meant with improving the tabbox. Sorry if that wasn't
> > clear.
>
> Not at all; it just seems you're more ambitious about this than I am. :)
>
> Just as a general comment, I think we shouldn't forget that Alt+Tab is not
> the only task-switching method, and given its non-discoverable nature, it's
> probably not the primary method for most people either.  I think two of the
> main attractions of Alt+Tab are speed of use and its previous window
> activation, i.e. "go back to where I was just now".  Anything else should
> probably be subordinate to those two.

 This is not only about the keyboard shortcuts. The mode for #2 could be also 
activated in other ways, like throwing the mouse into some screen corner or a 
button on the panel. When having The Ultimate Window Selector(TM) it'd be 
just logical and e.g. for users mostly using mouse this could be pretty fast 
and convenient.

-- 
Lubos Lunak
KDE developer
--------------------------------------------------------------
SUSE LINUX, s.r.o.   e-mail: l.lunak@suse.cz , l.lunak@kde.org
Lihovarska 1060/12   tel: +420 284 028 972
190 00 Prague 9      fax: +420 284 028 951
Czech Republic       http//www.suse.cz
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