When multiple windows are opened the desktop can soon become a mess, fulfilled with many windows covering the others and to find your application can be really frustrating. The GNOME Shell offers multiple possibilities to help the user to handle multiple windows.
The absence of a classic windows list like in others desktop environments could initially make you feel lost, it’s never easy to change your habits. After years of MS Windows, Apple OS X, GNOME and KDE the new GNOME Shell solution will surely appear unfriendly to adopt but after the initial approach it should you result really simple and natural.
The Application menu on the left side of the panel will always show you what is the active application in the foreground which will receive your keyboard input (like text typing or shortcut keys to close the application).
Make sure of what is the active application before to type something on the keyboard by simply looking the Application menu icon and name.
The Activities overview will allow you to see all the windows at glance and easily switch between them simply by clicking upon their miniatures.
When you move the mouse pointer upon a window a white cross inside a black circle will appear in the corner of the chosen window. That will allow you to close the window without having to move it in the foreground first.
Every window miniature is alive, it’s not a static image but the displayed content will show the same and updated of the real window application, helping you to choose the right needed window.
In the Activities overview you can always move a window in a different workspace by dragging its miniature in a different workspace on the right side. The workspaces list initially will be partially visible but when the drag is started the full workspaces list will be shown.
The dragged window will be immediately moved from the initial workspace to the destination workspace where you drop the window.
The workspaces list is dynamically managed, a new empty workspace is automatically created as soon a window is moved in the last workspace so there will always be an empty workspace to drag windows into. In the same way an existing workspace will be automatically removed when all its windows are closed or moved elsewhere.
In the above picture the calculator was dragged from the first (and actual) workspace and dropped in the last workspace. Immediately the window was moved and a new empty workspace was automatically created.
The workspaces can be switched from the activities overview in two ways: a simple click upon it will change the active workspace or you can scroll between them using the mouse scroll.
A more classic approach for move windows between workspaces can be obtained by right clicking on the title bar of a window and selecting Move to Workspace Down, Move to Workspace Up or Move to Another Workspace and choosing the desired workspace where to move the active window.
The others options in the menu will allow you to fix the window as always visible in the foreground even when another windows is active. The Always on Visible Workspace option will make sure the window will be always visible in every workspace and it will appear repeated in every workspace in the activities overview.
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