add option for alt-tab window grouping disable

[Martin Vysny]

Good day, thank you for your wonderful work on Unity, I find it very usable. The only thing that bothers me is the window grouping, as described here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1826736

quote:
MY Question is if its possible to disable the "Grouping" part... such as having multiple nautilus windows.
Primarily thunderbird is the largest annoyance.. if im writing an email on my laptop and accedentally (touchpad 'palming') off the 'compose message' window; by default and second nature, my brain tells my fingers to alt-tab back into it. unfortunately, this DOES NOT WORK!

Basically, I am trying to restore Alt+Tab functionality from Unity 2D. I tried number of other switchers, all have their separate issues. For example, Static Application Switcher does not show minimalized windows (or windows hidden by the "show desktop" shortcut), etc.
Thanks :)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: unity 6.10.0-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-18.29-generic 3.5.7
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-18-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu6
Architecture: i386
CompizPlugins: [core,composite,opengl,decor,move,regex,gnomecompat,vpswitch,mousepoll,resize,place,grid,compiztoolbox,snap,imgpng,unitymtgrabhandles,session,animation,workarounds,wall,expo,ezoom,fade,scale,unityshell]
Date: Mon Nov 26 10:06:10 2012
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2010-05-17 (924 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429)
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-10-03 (53 days ago)

[Martin Vysny (vyzivus)]

Am I really the only one who finds myself struggling with Alt+Tab/Alt+` each time I want to switch to a different window? Previously, it was a no-brainer to switch to a previous window. Now, I must mentally remember, whether previous window was of the same application or some other application. This, I always fail to remember, so I first press Alt+Tab, some window will pop-up, I start cursing and start pressing some magic combination of Alt+Tab and Alt+` until the correct window is displayed. Because of this, I have started using tabs whenever possible, just to avoid this horrid window switching mess.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[johnbigley (feketga)]

I have the same issue with Unity window switching. Window grouping makes it VERY annoying when working with multiple Terminal and multiple Firefox windows open. The current grouping and even the Super+W (expose effect) makes it very cumebrsome (slow) to quickly switch to the window I need.
Could at least a dconf option be added to disable window grouping?

[Daniel Feliciano Branco (danielblues)]

I have the same problem with alt+tab grouping, if you have several desktops and you organise your tasks in each desktop you don't really need alt+tab grouping, as you group your windows by desktop. Please add an option to turn it off. Thank you.

[Pander (pander)]

I switch a lot of windows of the same application or multiple instances of the same application. The grouping is not productive in that case and does not help prevent RSI. Implementing disabling ALT+TAB-grouping would allow people using applications in this way to be again efficient as before in doing their work with the not more effort or time. Meanwhile a workaround via a configuration file or command would be much obliged.

[Pander (pander)]

PS The idea of the AT+TAB and ALT+` is nice but doesn't work when you have for example ten images from GIMP and then drawings from Inkscape all in a different order and all you want is to quickly navigate two or three windows back or further.

[MestreLion (mestrelion)]

This is indeed very annoying. Isn't there *any* way to disable grouping? I'm willing to accept *any* method, dconf, gconf, some obscure config file, anything? Heck even editing source and recompiling if that's what it takes.

[Knopf (darthknopf)]

This is _THE_ usability killer! I've been switching between windows for so many years. It was always fun. I'm doing it intuitively: switching to the last used window, then the second last used window and so on. Now I start to hate it. This unity concept always lets me make mistakes and need to switch back and forth and forces me to _think_ about what window I want and how to get there.

I'm trying the ALT-TAB / ALT-` thing. It makes it a tiny little better. But it's still far from acceptable.

And (as if that wasn't enough) to crown it all, there is an additional icon in the task switcher that minimizes all windows! Really, these moments when I try to find some window and accidentally hit this icon, it makes me hate ubuntu, unity and the rest of the world... Please, when I want to minimize all windows I'll use some hotkey. Who needs that in the task switcher? Ok, it "switches" to the desktop, but still..

So please give us a CHOICE!

[Knopf (darthknopf)]

Also, before when switching between windows, the currently highlighted window would be outlined at exactly the location on the sceen where it was. That was such a usabiltiy enhancement! For example to find one of several open console windows (that are placed beside each other) was easy to find intuitively just by remembering the postion.

This feature = gone... sad.

[MC Return (mc-return)]

@Knopf:
Workaround:
Open a terminal, type "sudo apt-get install compiz-plugins* compizconfig-settings-manager"
Open CCSM, enable and configure "Shift Switcher", or if you want the old switcher,
which will highlight the windows position "Static Application Switcher".

[Knopf (darthknopf)]

@MC Return: Thank you for the suggestion. I've read about using CCSM. I tried to avoid it until now because of the advise against it that's around.

I tried to analyze what's happening in the settings when I use CCSM to change the switcher (in a virtual environment), in order to manually change it without installing CCSM. It seems the changes go into '~/.config/dconf/user' (which unfortunately is a binary file). It can be read and modified with the 'gsettings' command. But it seems some of the settings CCSM does are not reflected with the gsettings tool. Then I tried gconftool-2 with no success. Then I gave up. (By the way, changing the switcher can be reverted by removing the file '~/.config/dconf/user'.)

In the end I was now just taking the "risk" and installing CCSM on my workstation. Btw in my case it was sufficient to install just the two packages 'compizconfig-settings-manager' and 'compiz-plugins' (without all the others that adding the '*' to 'compiz-plugins' imply).

I'm almost happy now, I got the switcher back, and the highlighting. The only drawback now is that I got some flickering between transparent and opaque in the switcher window background while switching. That's not so nice.

Also sometimes I got random windows being completely black when switched to. Resizing the window fixes that. Not 100% sure if this is connected to th CCSM though.

[Eric Shattow (eshattow)]

Window grouping in the task switcher makes sense for touch input use case. It does not make sense for mouse input use case.

[biddster (luke-biddell)]

Have to agree. Would love to see this feature. My workflow uses windows, I tend to not care which application they belong to. I just want to see the recent list of windows I've interacted with. Sure you can enable the static switcher, but that's jarring and flickery.

[Julien-Charles Lévesque (jclevesque)]

Any progress on this?

It greatly disrupts my workflow when I need to switch quickly between code and multiple terminals.

[Mauro Miolo (mauro-miolo)]

confirm, please fix

[david fung (davidfung)]

Alt-tab window grouping is a real productivity killer to a keyboard-oriented programmer. I frequently switch between a small number of windows while writing code. Unfortunately those few windows often belong to different apps which have multiple windows opened.

Adding an option to disable it will be really nice. Everybody wins.

[Sam Stoelinga (sammiestoel)]

2 years so many people saying it's affecting them, please increase priority.

[tehownt (tehownt)]

WIth the release of 14.10, compiz-plugin-extras are not packaged anymore and fallback to the static window switcher (recommended everywhere when this issue is mentionned) is not easily feasible anymore. Users are bound to the default unity switcher's painful time delay.

This switcher behavior is ridiculous and counterproductive, as mentionned many times in this thread, there should be an option to disable grouping and/or have a way to go back to a switcher that resembles the static one (live preview yet no grouping).

[Claudio (claudio-fischer)]

confirm!
Please add an option to disable grouping in the switcher!!!

[Claudio (claudio-fischer)]

is there a workaround for ubuntu 14.10 or 15.04 to disable grouping in the switcher?

[Jakub Mikołajczyk (kmikolaj)]

This bug still exists? After two years? This is INSANE!!!

[baizon (baizon)]

I would assume there isn't much effort to implement this, so please someone.