The Application Switcher, Ring Switcher, and Shift Switcher allow you to flip between your windows using your keyboard, with some nice 3D effects. Note that these are three completely separate plugins which essentially perform the same functionality; hence, these three plugins have been placed together on this page.
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Application Switcher |
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Application Switcher
Application Switcher |
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Youtube video
The Application Switcher provides the same functionality as the traditional GNOME and KDE <Alt>Tab switcher, but uses live window thumbnails to show its previews.
Usage
You can use the Application Switcher to switch between windows of different contexts with different keybindings.
To flip to the next window, press <Alt>Tab
To flip to the previous window, press <Shift><Alt>Tab
To flip to the next window in all workspaces, press <Ctrl><Alt>Tab
To flip to the previous window in all workspaces, press <Shift><Ctrl><Alt>Tab
Finally, you can choose whether to overlay an icon on the window's thumbnail. If you enable the Show minimized option, the switcher will show the minimized application's icon in the list.
Appearance
You can also edit a few aesthetic details, such as the speed at which the switcher flips between windows, and how much the desktop zooms out. You can also configure the following attributes for inactive windows in the list:
- Saturation
- Brightness
- Opacity
Ring Switcher |
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Ring Switcher
Ring Switcher |
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Youtube video
The Ring Switcher plugin allows you to flip through your windows in a ring. This has advantages over the normal switcher as you can see more windows at once.
This plugin requires the Text plugin to be enabled if you want to draw text.
Usage
The keybindings are essentially the same as the normal Application Switcher plugin, except that <Alt> is replaced with <Super>
To flip to the next window, press <Super>Tab
To flip to the previous window, press <Shift><Super>Tab
To flip to the next window in all workspaces, press <Ctrl><Super>Tab
To flip to the previous window in all workspaces, press <Shift><Ctrl><Super>Tab
Because the Ring Switcher is based on the Scale plugin, you can also select windows with the mouse. This can be enabled in CCSM via Ring Switcher plugin -> Misc Options tab -> Mouse Selection.
You can also choose to overlay an icon on the window thumbnails, or to show icons for minimized windows in the list.
Appearance
The Ring Switcher also provides a number of appearance options. You can change the following:
- The speed of the switcher flip animation
- Inactive window opacity
- How much darker windows get the 'further away' they are
- How much smaller windows get the 'further away' they are
- How big the thumbnails are in Width / Height
- How much of the screen the ring spans.
Text
Finally, you can choose whether to show the title of the selected window. To do this, make sure that the Text plugin is enabled, and you can change things like the font size and the text placement on the screen.
Shift Switcher |
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Shift Switcher
Shift Switcher (cover) |
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Youtube video
The Shift Switcher provides the same window switching functionality, but with some neater effects, Flip and Cover.
This plugin requires the Text plugin to be enabled to draw text.
Usage
The keybindings are essentially the same as the normal Application Switcher plugin, except that <Alt> is replaced with <Super>
To flip to the next window, press <Super>Tab
To flip to the previous window, press <Shift><Super>Tab
To flip to the next window in all workspaces, press <Ctrl><Super>Tab
To flip to the previous window in all workspaces, press <Shift><Ctrl><Super>Tab
To 'initiate' shift mode, so that you can select windows by scrolling, press <Shift><Super>s
- To scroll between windows, you can click and drag, or use the mouse wheel
- To flip between windows in a certain direction, you can use the arrow keys
You can also set the icon overlay to be big, a small icon, or none as well as showing an icon for minimized windows.
Appearance
You can customize the appearance for all shift modes. Here are some of the options that let you do this:
- Max window size: How big the thumbnails are in shift mode
- Background intensity: How bright the background is
- Reflection:
- Ground colors
- Reflection intensity
- Ground size
- Fade speed: How fast the shift initiate animation is
- Shift speed: How fast the shift switch animation is
Modes
The Flip mode arranges your windows in a stack-like formation which can be flipped through, similar to the 'Flip 3D' effect in Microsoft Windows Vista.
The Flip angle option allows you to configure what angle the windows are facing when flip mode is initiated
The Cover mode arranges your windows similarly to the album covers in Apple's CoverFlow for iTunes.
The Cover Offset option allows you to configure the angle of the selected window and its position on the screen.
Text
The Shift Switcher plugin can also show the title of the selected window. To enable it, the Text plugin must be enabled. You can configure things like:
- The size and color of the text
- What position on the screen the text is