can you provide some reasoning why you need the icon there? It is already provided in the "title bar" for the selected window? What is the usecase you want to solve by having an icon there?

Please note that everybody can contribute new layouts. See: http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/KWin/WindowSwitcher

As long as you have higlight current windows set, this is true. But I usually disable this function, so i won't see titlebar icons.

I meant the selection shown in the box itself. It contains an icon.

You mean the text below the window previews? Yes, it contains the icon of the selected window. But the previous version showed icons on every preview image, making it easier to find what one is looking for (preview + icon).

can you explain why it is easier to find the window? Did you notice that the thumbnails got significantly increased?

If you want to "find" something Alt+Tab might not be the best switcher for you. Have you tried Present Windows (Ctrl+F9/Ctrl+10)? It provides search.

I can just say, that the old version perfectly fulfilled my needs. And I know all the possibilities (like showing present windows).

(In reply to comment #4)
> But the previous version showed icons on every preview image,
> making it easier to find what one is looking for (preview + icon).

That should be hard to reason.
The issue here is called non hierarchical information overflow.

You've already got two equally ranked id's for the window - the thumbnail and the subtitle (which i personally would lower in contrast to make it a distinct second level id, resolving ambiguity for eg. two kwrite windows or so) and you want to add a third which provides no additional information.

You'll usually easily be able to differ between kmail, konqueror and kwrite by the thumbnails. if you want to select between to different kwrite windows with different documents, the icon is no help at all. Either you can by the layout of the text, or you need a second level id with more information detail, like the window title.

If you want to use the window icon *instead* of the thumbnail as first level id, that's a different matter, but such layout exists (and the thumbnail would merely be a -distracting- visual gimmick in this case)

(In reply to comment #6)
> I can just say, that the old version perfectly fulfilled my needs.
I am sorry, but unless you can explain your "needs", that is actually not a helpful information to base any action on.

It's a bit hard to describe. For me, the icon on the preview is just perfect. I can see it on first sight. On the new switcher, i have to toggle through, to see it.

I first look at the icons, and then on the preview image. This is very useful, if you got several windows of one application open.

I tried to use the icon only switcher, as you suggested, but that's not the same.

so you could design your own switcher using a thumbnail + icon. That's rather simple and I already provided you the link for it :-)

(Please note that for technical reasons it is not possible to place a different QML item over the thumbnail).

If the layout is good we might even ship it in 4.9 :-)

The current behavior is intended and by that this bug is a worksforme.

The thumbnails are restricted in size to ensure that it always shows enough information to make it possible to identify the window. Additionally for the selected window the icon and caption is show. In the old boxswitch implementation the icons were only added because the thumbnails could become so small that you cannot recognize the window. Unfortunately it was a suboptimal solution as for many e.g. kwrite windows it was still impossible to recognize the window.

Review request for the new switcher:

https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/109832/