You work in a shared office space. Qubicles, open-space, coffee shop etc. Your desktop is Gnome (of course). You’re a productive person, so lots of open windows, tabs, etc. Some of the windows contain private information - your online bank account, sexy correspondence with your mate, etc. People walk around you and peek behind your shoulder. You don’t want to switch virtual desktops all the time just to protect your stuff.
My suggestion: Window lock. Same as screen lock, only at window scope. Click an icon or press a keyboard shortcut, and the window goes blank with some indication that it’s locked, such as (from the top of my head) large Gnome logo with lock or just lock in the center of the window. Want to unlock that window? Click the unlock button or press shortcut, and then use your standard authentication - fingerprint, password etc.
Further extensions:
- Set a desktop-wide timeout policy that auto-locks sensitive windows if they go out of focus beyond a time limit.
- Tab locks in applications (with desktop supprt via API) - can be useful in browsers.
- Can be combined with auto-mute when app in window plays sound (AFAIK, Gnome already has support for differential volume control at application level)
Makes sense?