Application & Window Identification

Contents

Application & Window Identification

Which window is which?

Goals

Enable users to identify:

Which app has focus
Which window has focus
Which window belongs to which app

Relevant Art

GNOME 3.28

Focused application is indicated by the app menu
Unfocused windows have a flat visual style

Mac

Unfocused windows have a flat visual style
Menu items for the focused app are shown in the menu bar. This includes the application name.
The layout of each header bar is fairly unique, which helps with window identification

Windows 10

Title bars of focused windows have a different color
How is focus indicated when windows don't have a titlebar?
Title bars often contain the application name

Android

Color is used to differentiate and identify apps
App name is shown in the app switcher

iOS

In split mode, the unfocused app has a slightly different color
App names and icons are shown in the app switcher

Deepin Linux

App icon is shown on the left of the header (it's non-interactive)
There's no indication of the focused window

elementary OS

There's no consistent explicit indication of which app each window belongs to - no app name or icon is shown
Unfocused windows have some UI elements desaturated/dimmed

Discussion

The background to this whiteboard page is our plans to drop app menus. One repercussion of this is that it might become more difficult to know which application is focused. Possible solutions here:

Remove the app icon and name from the top bar, don't change anything else
Continue to show the app icon and name in the top bar, for the focused app (but don't include the menu - it would be non-interactive)
Show the app icon in the header bar, a bit like Deepin does
Allocate a color to each app and use it in the app window to hint at the window's identity
Change the design of the GNOME apps, so that each one has more of a unique UI layout