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Thread: What's with the alt-tab behaviour in Unity?

  1. #11
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    Re: What's with the alt-tab behaviour in Unity?

    By ~ I meant ` see snowpines post, not sure if that's a difference on your keyboard.

    You might like the scale feature super+w
    "You can't expect to hold supreme executive power just because some watery tart lobbed a sword at you"

    "Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone."

  2. #12
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    Re: What's with the alt-tab behaviour in Unity?

    snowpine, on a norwegian keyboard, ` is on:

    AltGr-\ space

    so it doesn't work. But it seems alt-| might work to switch between windows in the same group. That's a start...

    But again, does anyone actually think Unity's behaviour is an improvement over the old behaviour? Why is it better, and how does it help you work more efficiently??

  3. #13
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    Re: What's with the alt-tab behaviour in Unity?

    A resounding yes for me. When I have 3-4 browsers open, 5-10 terminals open, and 10 tomboy notes open, I don't have to tab through all of that to get to a place, I have 3 tab groups (4 including show desktop), so I can quickly tab to the group I want and go through only it's windows, so no tabbign through 20 windows to select between my 3 browsers windows.

    It's a god send.
    "You can't expect to hold supreme executive power just because some watery tart lobbed a sword at you"

    "Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone."

  4. #14
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    Re: What's with the alt-tab behaviour in Unity?

    Quote Originally Posted by k999 View Post
    snowpine, on a norwegian keyboard, ` is on:

    AltGr-\ space

    so it doesn't work. But it seems alt-| might work to switch between windows in the same group. That's a start...

    But again, does anyone actually think Unity's behaviour is an improvement over the old behaviour? Why is it better, and how does it help you work more efficiently??
    As I mentioned above, it gives the user more control by splitting "switch to a different app" and "switch to a different window of the same app" into separate keystrokes. We can debate whether/why giving the user more control is a good thing, but it is pretty much the core of the open-source philosophy. Also the new Alt+` paradigm is used by Apple (a company generally lauded for their usability/design) and by the upstream Gnome developers. So in order to NOT use Alt+` and go back to the old Alt+TAB behavior, Ubuntu would have to deviate from the upstream desktop environment. (I haven't tried Windows 8 yet so I'm not sure which they use.)

  5. #15
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    Re: What's with the alt-tab behaviour in Unity?

    Another way to explain it is that Ubuntu is trying to provide a consistent interface and easy learning curve for users who might be transitioning from Mac OS or from other Linux distros that use Gnome.

  6. #16
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    Re: What's with the alt-tab behaviour in Unity?

    If you mostly switch between terminals, you might like quake. It's in the repo. It activates with F12 as a dropdown and allows tabs. Works for me.

    Earl

  7. #17
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    Re: What's with the alt-tab behaviour in Unity?

    Quote Originally Posted by jerome1232 View Post
    A resounding yes for me. When I have 3-4 browsers open, 5-10 terminals open, and 10 tomboy notes open, I don't have to tab through all of that to get to a place, I have 3 tab groups (4 including show desktop), so I can quickly tab to the group I want and go through only it's windows, so no tabbign through 20 windows to select between my 3 browsers windows.

    It's a god send.
    i have one browser, 2 or 3 terminal. and want to use the keyboard only. A much more common use case if you allow me to guess so.

    i'm either alt-tabbing from terminal 1 to terminal 2, or from browser to a terminal... having to expend brain resources to everytime remember which alt-tab i need is retarded. "am i at the browser? do i press alt-tab or alt-`? duh pressed the wrong one, now do i press the same again or try the other? duh! wrong again!"

    now, your use case is perfect and i always used it, and you can use something much better than that let's-copy-osx-like-we-can't-think-for-ourselves... if have several windows of a class open, and you need to go to that class of window, just press flag-N, N being the number you assigned for that application on the dasher.

    So in your case, you need to go to a terminal window, press flag-1 and all terminal windows will open. Need to go to one of the 100 stick notes, press flag-3 and they will open up.... but again, zero for usability. it's impossible to change windows using the keyboard alone. why doesn't it clycle windows? because no unity developer actually uses the keyboard! and since they decide features for themselves, you have to use the mouse as well.

    summing up, you now have 3 ways to change windows using the mouse, and one broken for using the keyboard.

    yeah, i know, if people think there's something better they will write a patch. well, i've written patches for metacity and compiz for even smaller things. now i'm just using Mate.


    Quote Originally Posted by snowpine View Post
    Another way to explain it is that Ubuntu is trying to provide a consistent interface and easy learning curve for users who might be transitioning from Mac OS or from other Linux distros that use Gnome.
    they are blindly forcing users to use ubuntu like mac. in compiz it was already possible to configure it like the mac. So if your idea was true, they would simply ship with a pre-configured compiz with defaults like the mac.

    But no, they ship with the defaults like the mac alright, but they also removed every personalization option to make it better than the mac (as it always was). Why? beat me. if i had to guess, i'd say someone is being very well paid by apple under the table to make this so
    Last edited by gcbzzzz; February 23rd, 2013 at 04:53 AM.

  8. #18
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    Re: What's with the alt-tab behaviour in Unity?

    Quote Originally Posted by gcbzzzz View Post
    now, your use case is perfect and i always used it, and you can use something much better than that let's-copy-osx-like-we-can't-think-for-ourselves... if have several windows of a class open, and you need to go to that class of window, just press flag-N, N being the number you assigned for that application on the dasher.
    I have a lot of applications on my launcher, more than I have numbers, and I don't want to memorize what order they are in. That method also doesn't allow me to tab through the windows of that application, it just brings up the most recently used window, or opens it if it's not already open.

    It doesn't take me much brain power to know that I'm Mozilla and want another Mozilla window and to press alt+` instead. Or to know that I'm in rhythmbox and want to get to a terminal. I get it, you don't like it.

    In what way is it impossible to use the keyboard alone? You don't need to involve the mouse one bit with the alt+tab/alt+` method. I'm not sure why you would even suggest you have to use the mouse, I wasn't even aware you could use the mouse with the switcher.

    Last this change came from the gnome-devs, so your suggesting the gnome-devs are being paid off to use their window switcher method... ok. sure. :eyeroll:
    "You can't expect to hold supreme executive power just because some watery tart lobbed a sword at you"

    "Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone."

  9. #19
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    Re: What's with the alt-tab behaviour in Unity?

    I agree on the behaviour not being a good thing, you can however just open a tabbed terminal session, pressing ctrl+shift+t in gnome-terminal will open a new tab and then you can use ctrl+pageup/pagedown to switch tabs.

    Your other option (and my choice) is to ditch unity all together and use cinnamon or mate desktop environments, they return to you the control over your desktop that you used to have in the days of old before unity came and made me hate ubuntu
    Catch me on Freenode - imark

  10. #20
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    Re: What's with the alt-tab behaviour in Unity?

    I too hate this behaviour - my normal mode of work is a large number of GVIM windows and a large number of xterm command windows.

    There will commonly be 2-3 GVIM windows and a command window to a particular "project" (e.g. a couple of source or config files and a shell to run them).

    The "stodgy old" behaviour with the "LRU" stack property on the windows allowed the windows of any particular "project" to be easily accessible via alt-tab.

    The point being - the "natural" grouping for my windows is NOT NOT NOT via application, but Unity is forcing that upon me.

    BugBear

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