[GNOME 40] In Activities overview, Tab and Shift+Tab should cycle through the windows in currently active workspace
Description
This suggestion deals with the behavior of the Tab, Shift+Tab, and Arrow keys during the Activities overview. I think their current behavior is not optimal and I propose an alternate behavior.
From my understanding the current behavior is this:
- Pressing Tab during the Activities Overview will select the current application. Continually pressing Tab will do nothing.
- Pressing Shift+Tab during the Activities Overview will select the last used application. Continually pressing Shift+Tab will do nothing.
- Pressing the arrow keys will directionally navigate through the windows on the current workspace.
I think the Tab behavior is unintuitive, especially when thinking about how the Tab button is used during Alt+Tab'ing. Changing the Tab behaviour will suggest a different way to use the arrow keys. Currently, I find the default keyboard shortcut to switch workspaces prohibitively difficult to press on my 13" laptop, requiring me to awkwardly hold down the Fn key to access PgUp and PgDn. (On a full size-keyboard, I also think that reaching for PgUp and PgDn is a stretch) I believe that when the user is in the Activities Overview, they should have a new set of more accessible keyboard shortcuts for switching the workspace.
Suggested Usage
Therefore I suggest this new behaviour for Tab, Shift+Tab, and Arrow Keys during Activities Overview,
Tab and Shift+Tab should cycle through the windows in the currently active workspace. By what logic I am currently not sure. Last used? Spatial? (When considering spatial, the developer will have to consider the interactions between the default arrangement, and the Native Window Placement extension. I think going clockwise and counterclockwise with tab/shift+tab is a good way to go.)
The left and right arrows will switch to the workspace on the left or right. The up and arrow keys I am not quite sure yet. Perhaps, they could move the user up and down these 3 things: The search bar, the row of workspaces, and the application docker on the bottom. Once a user is on the application docker, they could use the left/right keys to select an application, then activate with enter.
Vision
I imagine myself switching applications this way: Hit super, maybe press left or right, mash tab (or shift+tab) a bunch of times, press enter( or super).