Comment 9 for bug 863399

In response to Jason:

0) It may work for you, but you're starting out by mentioning that you're an unusual (or at least an extreme) use case. I know that I am finding it jarring and disruptive to my work flow, because I organize my tasks by workspace - when I'm working in one, I don't want to be interrupted by accidentally going to another that's not related or is only tangentially related. I'm finding it very difficult to work with, and very annoying.

1) "Unity is application based, not window based. We try to enable some window based management features, but not to the detriment of the application based view."

Unfortunately, this is one area that focusing on the application-based view seems to be to the detriment of usability - which should *always* take priority. I'm leery of the whole application based view to begin with, because the general user sees *windows*, not applications. The average person will see two Firefox windows open, not Firefox with two windows.

"You're going to have to drink that kool-aid sooner or later if you want to be happy."

That attitude is what is pissing off a significant portion of the current user-base, just FYI.

2) I'm not really sure what you're getting at with this. I've been trying gnome-shell for the last couple of days, so maybe tonight I'll log in with unity and refresh my memory.

I haven't tried the bias option you mentioned, but I will. I don't think it's really what people are wanting, though. I know when I'm working on one workspace, I don't want to be bothered with the others unless I specifically ask to be. It sounds like this will still show windows on other workspaces in the same view.

The workspace paradigm is an excellent tool for task organization, as you noted. Just as an example, a common use case for me would be balancing my checkbook and paying bills on Workspace (WS) 1 (KMyMoney, LibreOffice Calc, Gedit, Firefox), and writing a document on WS2 (LO Writer, Gedit, Firefox, PDFs). When I'm working on the checkbook, I don't want to see anything not having to do with that task, and I especially don't want to have to sort through the various windows whose applications are common to both workspaces (i.e., Firefox, Gedit, etc.). The idea is similar to why the MS ribbon is such a horrible idea - if I have to stop to think "Is it this one or that one I'm working with right now?", then my workflow has been disrupted along with my focus, and it just slows me down and introduces greater potential for mistakes. The application-based view of Unity has interfered with the task-management view of the workspaces.