Ubuntu
unity package

alt-grave switcher does not iterate through all windows

Bug #1386466 reported by Ray Kiddy
8
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Unity
Won't Fix
Undecided
Unassigned
unity (Ubuntu)
Won't Fix
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

There is a serious problem with how the alt-backtick (or alt-grave) switching works. Say I have 10 windows open in Firefox. It is almost impossible to iterate through all 10 of them. This is, I think, for 2 reasons.

First, every time the "spread" comes up, the windows are in a different, and seemingly random, order.

If I hit alt-grave over and over again, I just observed it cycling back and forth between 2 windows. It goes between the start window and another, and I have no idea how that window was chosen.

How do I look at the 2nd window, then the 3rd, the the 4th, and so on?

As of now, I have to look at the spread and, for each one, remember which one I have looked at and which I have not. If there are 3 windows, this is fine. But if there are 10 or 12? No. The fact that the windows come up in random order (mentioned above) makes this harder. I cannot even remember the positions of the windows I have examined. I have to actually find the window content.

It would be nice if the job of remember which windows I have seen as I iterated through the available windows was not a job that I had to do, but a job that software could do for me. Is there software that can do this for me? If so, please let me know which it is.

thanx - ray

ps: I have read through these for help:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/jv5vy/ubuntu_1110_so_far_screenshot_tour_by_jono_bacon/c2fk1bs

http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/what-are-unitys-keyboard-and-mouse-shortcuts

http://design.canonical.com/2012/03/task-switching-in-ubuntu-and-a-introduction-to-the-spread/

Let me know if there is other doc that shows how to configure window switching or what key-combo to use.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: unity 7.2.2+14.04.20140714-0ubuntu1.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-37.64-generic 3.13.11.7
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-37-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.5
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,composite,opengl,compiztoolbox,decor,vpswitch,snap,mousepoll,resize,place,move,wall,grid,regex,imgpng,session,gnomecompat,animation,fade,unitymtgrabhandles,workarounds,scale,expo,ezoom,unityshell]
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Mon Oct 27 17:11:22 2014
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-01-31 (269 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20130820.1)
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-08-14 (74 days ago)

Revision history for this message
Ray Kiddy (ray-ganymede) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0) wrote :

Windows are ordered in the alt-tab spread by their last focus time, so first one is the latest focused (if it's not the currently focused, in this case it is the last one).

If you want to move more easily between these windows, you can also use arrow keys or select your target using the mouse.

Changed in unity:
status: New → Incomplete
Changed in unity (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Ray Kiddy (ray-ganymede) wrote :

Try this. Create 3 html pages.

% echo "<html><head><title>01</title></head><body><h1>01</h1></body></html>" > 01.html
% echo "<html><head><title>02</title></head><body><h1>$1</h1></body></html>" > 02.html
% echo "<html><head><title>03</title></head><body><h1>03</h1></body></html>" > 03.html

Open them into separate windows in the order 1, 2, 3.

Go to the Firefox icon in the Launcher and left-click on it, which gives you the same sort of view of all the windows. Navigate to window 1. Do this again, navigating to window 2. And again, navigating to window 3. From this point on whenever you go to the launcher, the window at the top left will be the one you accessed longest ago. So, if you hit the Launcher icon at this point and always click on the first, top window, you will see:

01, 02, 03, 01, 02, 03, 01, 02, 03, .... etc, forever.

If you are looking at 5 windows, you will get:

01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, ..., forever.

In other words, you will be navigating through all the windows in an orderly manner.

Then go to window 1. Hit alt-grave and pick the window at the top-left. It will be either 02 or 03. Say that it is 02. So, now 02 is front-most. Hit alt-grave again. The left, top window will be 01. So, if you hit alt-grave and take the top-left window, you will get:

01, 02, 01, 02, 01, 02, ... forever.

Note that if you have 20 windows open and you do this, the windows you will see by hitting alt-grave and selecting the top-left window are:

01, 02, 01, 02, 01, 02, etc, etc, etc.

You see that there is a difference, yes?

My initial report was a bit more complex than this, but if you want something that is 100% reproducible and as simple as I can make it, here it is.

If you fix this, it will be clear how to use alt-grave to navigate through all the windows. If you do not, then alt-grave gives you a list and the order of the list is changed every time, so you have to search, yourself, for one of the pages you have not already navigated through. And, as I pointed out, rather than make me play whack-a-mole in 20 windows, the windows could be presented in a logical order, as they are from clicking on the Launcher icon.

Revision history for this message
Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0) wrote :

As per bug #1349281 also the order of the windows in spread won't follow anymore what you say. Instead windows will spread based on their actual position, more than on the focus state.

What happens with Alt-` instead, is that it follows the same behavior of alt+tab: the first and quick tap should select the *previously* focused window, not the window to be focused next (as it happened with spread).

So windows switcher spread are arranged based on their "last focused" time, so that you can quickly access the windows you used more recently.

summary: - alt-backtick switcher does not iterate through all windows
+ alt-grave switcher does not iterate through all windows
Changed in unity:
status: Incomplete → Won't Fix
Changed in unity (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Won't Fix
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