Can't close windows from the overview using a touchscreen
On GNOME 40.
Since the close icon is not visible until a window is hovered, there's not way to close windows from the overview via touch.
Suggested fix:
- A "close window" target (e.g. the lower right corner of the screen). An icon or label could appear there on drag initiation to disclose this feature. If the target is placed at the lower screen edge, this would require e.g. constraining the dash width to reserve space for the close target, or shrinking its width when necessary. Alternatively, the target could be at the top of the screen to one side (or both) of the search field.
Other possible fixes:
- Touch-hold to show the close button. Not ideal since it would quickly become tedious when wanting to close multiple windows.
- Detect that the device has a touchscreen, and always show close buttons in this case.
Non-fixes:
- Only showing close buttons when the overview is opened with a touch gesture. This doesn't work if e.g. the device also has a keyboard/trackpad/hardware Super button (e.g. some Surface models) and the user employs one of these to open the overview. It's a natural approach to want to combine these with touch to close, since non-touch methods are faster for opening the overview, but touch-to-close is potentially faster than other methods.
Edited by GN