Direct Indicator of which virtual desktop currently on

[whardier]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

I'm proposing a taskbar or OSD based desktop pager similar to that seen at the top of the Task View. Some UI for this may be similar to:

• Taskbar based small pager just highlighting which desktop is active (seen in many FOSS desktops)
• Taskbar based small pager showing preview of each desktop (also seen in many FOSS desktops)
• Quake style dropdown similar to the upper pager of the Task View visible during transition via ctrl+left/ctrl+right navigation
• A simple OSD showing an accessible name for what specific desktop is currently selected

I currently have animations turned off and often remote desktop to windows systems where it may also be turned off. Having no motion or pager to help establish which desktop is selected can be somewhat confusing.. hence why pagers are so popular outside of Windows/MacOS where virtual desktops are more of a norm.

Ultimately this may pave a way for windows to be dragged toward other desktops by way of the pager interface - which could in turn trigger fancyzones to reorient the window for that desktops preference.

Scenario when this would be used?

As a local or remote desktop user needing a stronger indication of what desktop is currently selected without cycling through the desktops via the Task View.

Supporting information

[dend]

Curious - how is this different from the built-in virtual desktop switcher (Win+Tab)?

[whardier]

Rather than going to the virtual desktop switcher by way of win+tab this feature request attempts to address an always-present or even modal based indicator of what desktop you are currently on. The attached images in the initial messages show a taskbar widget where this is being done (simple highlighting) and then also an example of what an ephemeral modal would look like as desktops are switched via the hotkeys for this.

Virtual desktop switching is second nature to experienced Linux users transitioning over to Windows 10. Powertools has helped a lot with added features. This feature request is to attempt to address the need for a pager widget specifically rather than taking a more circuitous route through the Task View.

[whardier]

If I were a smidge more familiar with what events are emitted and available via the window manager/desktop manager I might have already attempted a simple and assistive on screen overlay stating the name of the current desktop for a fraction of a second.

[crutkas]

Have you seen the new one in windows 11?

[whardier]

@crutkas - sweet. backport it to 10?

[whardier]

I'm not sure what "new one" is in windows 11 but if we're talking about a pager that exists in the task bar.. that's great. Otherwise I think we've strayed from the context.

[dedavis6797]

I see what you mean @whardier. Interesting concept, I could see something like this being useful for my own workflows as I also use virtual desktops pretty extensively. If we were to pursue this we'd need to spec out the interface for this and make sure it ties in well with the feel/theme of the OS.

We'll poke around at the idea some more following our general stability efforts. Thanks!

[whardier]

Thanks for thought on this.

You know... it would be super mega cool to have event driven OSD support backed by a contextual template system.

There used to be some fairly impressive OSD solutions out there but they have had a hard time keeping up. It would be great to be have some canned OSD configurations and the means to route say.. a desktop change event.. toward a specific OSD template written in a simple template engine and passed a safe context to draw variables from.