#193 add another window switching method (taskbar order)

[Jiri Bohac]

Hi, this patch adds a new window swithing method that switches windows in the order they apear on the taskbar.

Rarionale: when I see a window on the taskbar that I want to switch to, the most intuitive way to do that is to have a key combination that will do the switching in the order the windows appear on the takbar.

The current methods (KeySysSwitchNext/Prev, KeySysWinNext/Prev) do switching in a completely different order, very unintuitive for this use case. There have been other people requesting something like this in the Tracker (#923054)

Please apply. (And I think it's not really a boating feature! ;-))

Btw: You may want to change the default keys (I used Ctrl+Shift+F1/F2). Personally, I will set it to Alt+Tab, so I don't care what the default will be ;-) Set it to whatever you feel matches best with your default keybinding policies.

Thanks, Jirka

[Jiri Bohac]

Patch adding a taskbar-order window switching method

[Jiri Bohac]

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I just wanted to let you know, that after a year of using IceWM with this patch, I am very happy with it.
At last, I set the keys differently:
KeyTaskBarSwitchNext="Alt+1"
KeyTaskBarSwitchPrev="Alt+grave"

This is conveniently close to Alt+Tab, which I still use in some situations.
It is nice to have these actions mapped to keys which are sideways adjacent to each other. Alt+1 switches to the task bar button on the right, alt+grave (which is just left of 1) will switch to the left.

So if you decide to accept this patch, I would recommend the above default key bindings.

[Jiri Bohac]

new version of patch

[Jiri Bohac]

Just added a new version of the patch: icewm_taskbar_order_switch_and_move.patch
Changes to the first version:
- renamed configuration variables (left/right instead of prev/next)
- changed default keys for switching windows to Alt+1 and Alt+grave (a setting I have found the most comfortable by using the patch for over two years)
- added the possibility to move the taskbar buttons (default keys Alt+Shift+1 and Alt+Shift+grave)
- minor cleanup, rediff to current icewm version

Pretty please ... any chance of merging this patch? Anything that I need to change for the patch to be accepted?

[Jiri Bohac]

Also, for anyone using openSUSE, a patched version of icewm is available for openSUSE Factory and openSUSE 11.3 in the buildservice: https://build.opensuse.org/project/show?project=home%3Ajbohac%3Abranches%3AX11%3Awindowmanagers
Give it a try! ;)

[Jiri Bohac]

An updated version of this patch has been merged in commit 049986e27a427d2cdee2d38dc64c786fff37482e (Allow switching and reordering taskbar buttons with keyboard.)
This ticket can be closed.