Unity is supposed to be able to do a desktop spread (similar to pressing Super+W, where you get a view of all windows in the current workspace) and a workspace spread (similar to Super+E, where you see all the workspaces).
Right now it's easy to perform a workspace spread because it's mapped to the workspace switcher, but desktop spread is supposed to become very relevant in Unity at some point, so how will the user access it? Will it be mapped to the workspace switcher instead of the workspace switcher? Or will Unity use an all-new effect halfway the two that exist now?
Best Answer
You will be able to map the workspaces launcher in Unity to any of the Compiz spread / expose plugin behaviours you like.
We are prototyping a new approach which makes desktop spread ("show all windows on the desktop") the default behaviour of that icon in the launcher.