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Hello, this is my first attempt at contributing to the
documentation, so please redirect me as needed. According to the
documentation on how to contribute documentation, the easiest way to
get started is to send a plaintext update to this list, so that's
what I'm doing! I would be happy to contribute directly via git,
but I could use some help finding the repo that contains this
particular set of documentation.<br>
<br>
For the Task Switcher (System Settings -> Task Switcher), I found
the existing documentation to be a bit sparse. After a lot of trial
and error I have a pretty good understanding of how all the Task
Switcher settings work, and so I wrote up new documentation to
reflect this information. The new text is below -- please let me
know what next steps would be. Thank you all!<br>
<br>
-Pete<br>
---------------------<br>
The Task Switcher allows the user to easily switch between currently
open windows using the keyboard. It is highly configurable, and
allows the user to control its behavior, visual appearance, keyboard
shortcuts, and window filtering. <br>
<br>
The Task Switcher is often invoked using the key combination Alt +
Tab, but this can be changed. When it is invoked, it shows a list of
all the currently open windows, optionally filtered and augmented
according to the configuration settings. For example, the list may
be filtered to show only windows that meet certain criteria, such as
windows that are currently visible. Once the window list is shown,
the user can cycle through all the listed windows by repeatedly
hitting the Task Switcher key combination. Releasing the Task
Switcher key combination will activate the window that was selected
in the list.<br>
<br>
Because the Task Switcher offers so many configuration options, two
distinct collections of configuration settings can be defined. These
collections are called 'Main' and 'Alternative', and each can have a
set of unique key combinations assigned to them.<br>
<br>
The configuration options for each of the Main and Alternative
collections are presented in four groupings, as follows:<br>
-Visualization<br>
-Shortcuts<br>
-Content<br>
-Filter Windows By<br>
<br>
These four configuration groupings are described below.<br>
<br>
Visualization<br>
This group of configuration options controls how the list of windows
is displayed on the screen. The default visualization is called
Breeze, which lists all open windows along the left-hand side of the
screen. Other visualizations include Cover Switch (a 3D carousel),
Flip Switch (a 3D stack of cards), and Medium Rounded (a Microsoft
Windows-style list of icons). Many more visualizations can be
downloaded and installed by clicking the Get New Task Switchers...
button at the bottom right of the dialog box.<br>
<br>
Once a visualization has been selected from the drop-down list, the
button to the right of the list can be clicked to see a preview or
to configure visualization-specific options.<br>
<br>
The 'Show Selected Window' checkbox determines how clearly the user
will see which window will be activated. If this box is checked,
then all windows will be dimmed except for the one that is currently
highlighted in the Task Switcher.<br>
<br>
Note: There may be cases where the desired Task Switcher
visualization cannot be shown. One of these situations can be when
a process called 'compositing' is turned off or disabled. If this
ever happens, the window list will still be shown, but in a very
simple format.<br>
<br>
Shortcuts<br>
Up to four keyboard shortcuts can be defined to invoke the Task
Switcher.<br>
In the All Windows section, the Forward and Reverse shortcuts will
cycle forward and backward through the full list of windows.<br>
In the Current Application section, the Forward and Reverse
shortcuts can be set to cycle through the windows of the current
application. For example, if you have three Dolphin file browser
windows open, then you would be able to use these shortcuts to just
cycle among the three Dolphin windows.<br>
To change a keyboard shortcut, click in the 'Forward' or 'Reverse'
box and type the desired shortcut combination. Be sure to use a
modifier key like Control or Alt as part of the shortcut, otherwise
you might not be able to cycle through the window list properly.<br>
<br>
Note: To invoke the Task Switcher without using the keyboard, you
can define screen edge actions in the Screen Edges module (go to
System Settings and then select Screen Edges).<br>
<br>
Content<br>
The content of the window list itself is partially controlled by the
options in this section.<br>
<br>
The 'Sort Order' drop-down list specifies whether the windows should
be listed in 'Stacking Order' or 'Recently Used' order. Stacking
Order is the order in which the windows appear on the screen, while
Recently Used order is the order in which the windows have been
used. Recently Used order makes it very easy to switch between the
two most frequently used windows because they will always appear in
the top 2 positions in the list.<br>
<br>
The 'Include Show Desktop icon' option will add a Show Desktop
option to the window list. This allows the user to easily select the
Desktop as the 'window' to show.<br>
<br>
The 'Only one window per application' option reduces clutter by only
showing one window for each open application. If an application has
multiple windows open, then its most recently activated window will
be shown in the list and the others will not be shown.<br>
<br>
Filter Windows By<br>
This section contains options for additional filtering of the list
of windows that are shown by the Task Switcher.<br>
<br>
Virtual Desktops<br>
When checked, this option filters the list of windows according to
which virtual desktop is currently active. If you consistently put
specific windows on specific virtual desktops, then this filtering
option can make it easy to switch to windows within or across those
virtual desktops.<br>
<br>
Activities<br>
When checked, this option filters the list of windows according to
which Activity is currently active. As with Virtual Desktop
filtering, this option can make it easier to switch to applications
within or across all Activities. <br>
<br>
Screens<br>
When checked, this option filters the list of windows according to
which Screen is currently active. For this option, the active
screen is the one that the mouse pointer is currently on, not the
screen that the currently active window is on. This option can be
useful to users who want to quickly switch between windows that are
on the same monitor in a multi-monitor setup.<br>
<br>
Minimization<br>
When checked, this option filters the list of windows according to
whether they are hidden or not.<br>
<br>
<br>
All of the options described above work together to provide very
fine-grained control of the Task Switcher's behavior and
appearance. For example, you could define the 'Main' settings
collection to be invoked with the Alt+Tab key combination, to show
the open windows in a carousel, to only show one window per
application, and to only list windows that are on the current
desktop and on the currently active screen. This can provide very
fast context-sensitive window switching if you have both 'work' and
'home' virtual desktops, and then keep all of your spreadsheets for
work and home on the same monitor.<br>
<br>
The availability of the 'Alternative' Task Switcher configuration
gives you a second way way to easily filter and browse through the
window lists. This should make it easier to navigate through large
numbers of windows spread across multiple virtual desktops, screen,
and activities.<br>
-------------------<br>
<br>
<br>
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