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Comment by subsection1h | Hacker News Reader

> I'm a developer and my workflow involves several different tools, Gnome Shell certainly doesn't hurt 'productivity'.

I'm also a developer whose workflow involves several different tools. One of those tools is Firefox, and I currently have several hundred tabs open in more than a dozen Firefox windows. I want to be able to instantaneously switch from Emacs to a specific Firefox window. I don't want to switch from Emacs to Firefox and then switch to a specific Firefox window (e.g., using Alt+`) like some desktop environments force their users to do.

The best solution I've found is to use a desktop environment or window manager that will display the Alt-Tab window list vertically with full titles displayed for all windows (which is similar to how I display tabs in Firefox using the Tree Style Tab extension). KDE and Openbox support this setup, and the last time I checked, Gnome didn't. So using Gnome would hurt my productivity.

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I currently have several hundred tabs open in more than a dozen Firefox windows.

This is not a typical use case. I do periodically see people leaving comments which claim that they usually have the entire World Wide Web open simultaneously, but not often enough for it to be a use case worth optimizing for.

Look up OneTab, it improved my quality of browsing the web x100+

Onetab basically refuses to load all previous tabs when you open the browser. By default, Firefox doesn't open old tabs until you move to them. Firefox also offers tab groups by default as well. Most importantly, Firefox uses only around half as much memory as chrome and (in my use) seems to be more responsive with lots of tabs open.

I see your (valid) point but I am also positive that you could, if you wanted to, create an simple js plugin for gnome shell that would have the desired effect, as others have created alternative alt+tab switchers: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/15/alternatetab/

While this may be an issue for you, I doubt having so many Firefox tabs open is all that common. I wouldn't consider this a failure of Gnome.

Personally, having that many tabs open would make my head hurt. I'll generally have Vim open with a few open buffers, one browser window, one terminal, and the running program I'm working on...

Actually, you are countering his personal experience with your own. Just because you would find that many open tabs to be problematic doesn't mean he will. He could be like a lot of developers, lots and lots of documentation pages pointing to API info whilst they code :-)

> Actually, you are countering his personal experience with your own.

Kind of the point. Just because one developer finds KDE or Gnome or x better doesn't make it a universal fact.

Many of us find Gnome suits us just fine.

> He could be like a lot of developers, lots and lots of documentation pages pointing to API info whilst they code :-)

Most documentation pages are searchable and well organized. No need to keep hundreds of open pages.

Use workspaces, that is the best way to switch between maximized windows in gnome. Even easier with 'workspaces to dock' extension - just scroll at the right edge of the screen.

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/294/shellshape/

finally fixed this for me. Awesome-style window switching without Awesome-style window glitching.

+1 I have the same issue with alt+tab and have stopped using Gnome shell.

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