13.04

Raring has had a number of improvements in this area which should improve the workflow for someone using multiple workspaces.

Lets look at some examples:

In this example you can see that I have Firefox and Terminal open in different workspaces - with firefox open in two instances on separate workspaces:

Look closely at the Launcher:

Firefox is shown with a full pip - thats the arrow shown. It only shows one since this is the only one running in this workspace.

The terminal pip is a narrow version indicating that its running in a different workspace. Thus you get an instant indication of BOTH applications running in the workspace as well as possible other applications running.

If you had two instances of firefox running in the workspace you would have two pips.

To create another instance of Firefox on another workspace, right-click and choose one of the first two options shown:

To flip between different instances, choose from the window title shown in the right-click quicklist.

It sounds very much like you're describing Xfce. I think it's a perfect successor for Gnome 2, because in many regards, it's very similar, except it works the way it's intended to. It has panels, very similar to the panels in Gnome 2 and they even support most Gnome Panel applets and Indicators. Xfce4-panel also allows you to have different panels on different screens, which is very nice. Xfce is also a little less demanding of the computer than Gnome 2 was.

LXDE is also very nice. It's quite a bit faster than Xfce, but also a little simpler. I'd say it's something similar to the plain UI in Windows. The LXpanel does not support Gnome Panel applets, but it does support indicators, though I think you'll have to install a plugin for it.

LXDE and Xfce are both complete desktop environments, but you can install only their panels separately if you wish: they're called lxpanel and xfce4-panel, respectively, and you can run them with Unity if you wish.