When GNOME 3.0 was released some weeks ago, I finally switched to gnome-shell by default. Performance is quite good in my laptop, so the only problem was getting used to the new user experience. After several weeks using it, there are only a few things I really miss:
- Real launchers: I use a lot of gnome terminals, and when I click on the gnome-terminal launcher I really want a new terminal.
- Window list applet: ALT+TAB is a mess when you have several gnome terminal windows because all thumbnails look pretty similar. Window list applet allowed you to see all your windows in the current workspace and select any of them by a single click. It’s true that window list applet buttons don’t help to identify your terminal windows either, but you can reorder them and I usually identify a terminal window by its position in the panel.
- Workspace switcher applet: similar to window list applet, I want to be able see all my workspaces and swtich to any of them by a single click. I always use the same workspace for the same kind of activity (mail, web browsing, devel, irc, im), so it’s very annoying when a workspace dissapears just because I’ve removed all the windows.
I still don’t have a workaround for all my use cases, but I’ve managed to make my life a bit easier by using a gnome-panel inside the shell. The only thing I had to change in gnome-panel was the D-Bus service name. And here is the result:
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| GNOME Panel running with GNOME Shell |