Force Alt+Tab show only active desktop apps in gnome-shell [duplicate]

Solution 1:

There is a Gnome Shell extension that does this: Alt Tab Workspace.

You could also directly enable this behavior in the default switcher by running:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.app-switcher current-workspace-only true

which is what the extension does under the hood.

Solution 2:

One potential option you may wish to consider is the Gnome-Shell Alternate Tab extension

It is the traditional Window-based Alt-Tab switcher that Ubuntu users have grown up with.

Windows are not grouped by application, nor by workspace
Thumbnails show window previews
Windows are sorted by time of focus

It doesnt meet your question "active desktop" criteria - however it does make switching more obvious and easier when you have multiple windows opened.

It is packaged in a PPA

To Install

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/testing 
sudo apt-get update
sudo gnome-shell-extensions-alternate-tab

As with all PPAs - these are testing for testing purposes. Either have a full backup you can restore with or use ppa-purge to remove the PPA

sudo ppa-purge ppa:ricotz/testing

Solution 3:

Two ways to solve the problem.

Install a plugin which modifies the behaviour of Alt+Tab to conventional methode. Then it shows all the opened windows go http://fpmurphy.com/gnome-shell-extensions You will find the plugin.
The current Alt+Tab feature is good. You try to understand it in a different way. let me explain. your Alt+Tab will show opened applications. if you have more than one window opened for a same applicaiton then use Alt+~ to switch between windows. It will automatically select the desktop. to change application use Alt+Tab and to change window of same applicaiton Alt+~ that is great way.

Solution 4:

You don't need any extension to enable this behaviour.

dconf-editor provides this feature as an option:

$ sudo apt-get install dconf-editor

Then

$ dconf-editor

This launch an graphical interface of system configuration database.

Navigate into it to org > gnome > shell > app-switcher and then, check the current-workspace-only checkbox option.

Close dconf window and try Alt+Tab. It should work as expected now.