Comment 0 for bug 730617

Revision history for this message
Michael Terry (mterry) wrote : When using scale/expose, windows don't keep their order

Binary package hint: unity

When clicking on an application icon in the launcher that has multiple windows open, a scale or expose is started, which shows thumbnails of all the app's windows. But it seems to order the windows differently each time (I think in order of which were used most recently). This prevents the user from taking advantage of muscle memory.

But I find this very disorienting. Let's say I have 3 open windows in an app that I want to switch between. It's hard to quickly do that via the launcher because I can't just zoom my mouse to where I expect the window I want will appear. Instead, I have to start a scale, then hunt and discover which thumbnail is actually the one I want. It's unlikely that I remember which window was opened, say, 2nd to last, so the current ordering isn't helping me much.

Compare with the classic GNOME session, where entries on the task switcher applet don't move. You can easily use muscle memory to get to your "unity bug" browser window vs your "google reader" browser window or whatever.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: unity 3.6.0-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-5.32-generic 2.6.38-rc6
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-5-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,mousepoll,vpswitch,regex,animation,snap,expo,move,compiztoolbox,place,grid,imgpng,gnomecompat,wall,ezoom,workarounds,staticswitcher,resize,fade,unitymtgrabhandles,scale,session,unityshell]
Date: Mon Mar 7 08:17:02 2011
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.utf8
 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2010-09-28 (160 days ago)