hi all ... so recently application windows have started to be associated by default with the activity they were started in.
after using it for a while now, i have found that it is becoming increasingly annoying. and for the same reason that hard-wiring virtual desktops and activities together would be: they are not perfect analogs. i think it makes a lot of sense to assign windows that represent documents to the current activity. however, for windows that are not associated with a document it makes very little sense much of the time. i want my IM app open no matter what (though i'd like it shift the contacts based on activity); i need kontact open no matter what (though similarly, i'd love it to be internally activity aware); ktorrent? same deal. amarok? yep. this was my impression after first using it, but i've given it some more time and instead of getting used to it, i'm just running into the annoyance more and more. and there is a growingly obvious dichotomy to me: one default for windows that represent documents; one default for windows that represent services / communication. the distinction is a little (though not very) fuzzy on the edges, but there are huge areas on both sides of the line that are quite clearly defined. imho it is a very bad idea to try and put this feature into 4.6 because there are two very important bits missing right now: * the ability to show what are on other activities; if i switch away from an activity and i "lose" application windows and i want to get back to one of them, i'd really appreciate a button to click on in the taskbar that would let me see where it is. or maybe this belongs in an improved activities management UI (and is another reason why i really can't see a "quick activity switcher" ever being more than a half-baked wimp of an interface: to be useful, being able to get a powerful overview of activities is really, really helpful to the point of being a required feature) * the ability to know which windows represent a document and which do not i'd like to request that we defer auto-assignment of windows to activities for 4.7 and work on the above two issues in that release (along with whatever else we scrape together as requirements). i'd also like to have another run at the activity manager UI, this time using QML and implementing things a little smarter. the current code makes my brain cells cry out "lord, there must be a less convoluted way to do something so simple!" and the UI is ok but really rather disapointing due to the limits of what is easily achievable with the current approach relative to using QML. this would be a nice opportunity to work in things like "associated windows" overviews. -- Aaron J. Seigo humru othro a kohnu se GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43 KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
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