Relative App Switcher (Alt+Tab)

Current Behavior

The App switcher can be activated while holding Alt+Tab. Hovering over an application icon selects it. Hovering anywhere outside the App switcher, does not change your current application. You have to move the cursor up to the app switcher first.

Proposal

App switching should depend on the direction you move your mouse, not its position.

• Hide the cursor when showing the app switcher.
• moving the mouse to the left selects the next item to the left of current selection.
• moving the mouse to the right selects an app to item right of current selection.
• moving the mouse downwards will move you down to window selection.
• moving the mouse upwards will move you up to app selection.

Video Mockup: http://youtu.be/sVkegrCmQwU

Talk

• No need to move the cursor up to an area which consists of 16% of your screen space. -BastianIlso

• As a result, this should give faster app switching. -BastianIlso

• I think it could be interesting to test how intuitive such a behavior is. -BastianIlso

• Design Question: Once an app has been selected, where should the cursor then be placed? mid-screen perhaps? -BastianIlso

• Design Question: What should happen when you are at the right-most item and the cursor moves to the right? nothing? select left-most item? -BastianIlso

• not sure i'd hide the cursor -AllanDay

• you'd lose the current ability to hover an app icon and then release, i suppose -AllanDay

• the real question is whether we want to change from a direct action (hover the icon) to an indirect one (move the pointer in space) -AllanDay

• i wonder if it could respond to distance from the icon? so if you move to an icon, that's focused, but if you move left or right, the focus shifts -AllanDay

• It could also open up some interesting animations for Appswitcher. Like having the current selection in the middle, and then moving the cursor to the left would make the apps in the Appswitcher move to the right, and opposite -BastianIlso