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I'm using Gnome Shell.

Alt+Tab shows all opened application windows from all virtual desktops. It becomes impossible to use when many windows are opened. Is it possible to show only these apps which are on active desktop?

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3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote
+50

One potential option you may wish to consider is the Gnome-Shell Alternate Tab extension

It is the traditional Window-based Alt-Tab switcher that Ubuntu users have grown up with.

  • Windows are not grouped by application, nor by workspace
  • Thumbnails show window previews
  • Windows are sorted by time of focus

It doesnt meet your question "active desktop" criteria - however it does make switching more obvious and easier when you have multiple windows opened.

It is packaged in a PPA

To Install

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/testing 
sudo apt-get update
sudo gnome-shell-extensions-alternate-tab

As with all PPAs - these are testing for testing purposes. Either have a full backup you can restore with or use ppa-purge to remove the PPA

sudo ppa-purge ppa:ricotz/testing
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up vote 2 down vote

Two ways to solve the problem.

  1. Install a plugin which modifies the behaviour of Alt+Tab to conventional methode. Then it shows all the opened windows go http://fpmurphy.com/gnome-shell-extensions You will find the plugin.

  2. The current Alt+Tab feature is good. You try to understand it in a different way. let me explain. your Alt+Tab will show opened applications. if you have more than one window opened for a same applicaiton then use Alt+~ to switch between windows. It will automatically select the desktop. to change application use Alt+Tab and to change window of same applicaiton Alt+~ that is great way.

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1) I can't see any plugin providing the required functionality on the web you have linked. 2) It's not great, I have been trying to get used to it for several months now, and finally concluded that I don't like it at all. I want to tab just through the windows local to the current virtual desktop. – salva Sep 26 '11 at 10:19
1  
@salva - have you tried the alternate tab extension (live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Extensions/alternate-tab) - its much better than standard alt-tab i.e. sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extensions-alternate-tab from this PPA (ubuntuupdates.org/ppa/gnome_shell?dist=natty) – fossfreedom♦ Sep 28 '11 at 10:35
@fossfreedom: thanks! write a new answer so I can award you the bounty! – salva Sep 28 '11 at 11:04
@salva - have written an answer... – fossfreedom♦ Sep 28 '11 at 11:34
re 2: I don't get it. In my opinion if I opened 2 different Terminal windows in 2 separate workspaces it was for a reason. It's because I group my activities by workspaces. For example, in first workspace I compile something using Eclipse + Terminal, in second I opened it to do a quick 'find | sed'. In my opinion Alt-Tab must switch those 2 instances of Terminal as separate application – antimirov Dec 4 '11 at 0:11
up vote 1 down vote

Here is the answer to your question which was actually bothering me a lot also:

How force Alt + Tab programs swicher to display only active desktop applications

(I've been 2 months under Ubuntu and I'm almost convinced that is a great OS for those who come from Windows, but not for those coming from Fedora or similar.)

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There is my question also, which looks the same but here I was asking about Gnome 3, and there about Unity. I've switched to Unity right now. :-) – Pawka Oct 21 '11 at 8:23

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