I used to be of the opinion that having both Activities and Virtual
Desktops was "too confusing" to users. I've changed my opinion recently,
because I finally came to understand how they're designed to be used for
very different things: Virtual Desktops are for window organization
within the current set of tasks, and Activities are for higher-level
task and context switching.
Both concepts have merit and are useful, but it's true that the current
user interfaces for them are rather confusing for a variety of reasons:
both have similar animated transitions; one has an accessible user
interface and a keyboard shortcut but the other one doesn't; one can
have different wallpapers but the other one can't; etc.
I'm willing to experiment with combining them to improve the user
interface, but I think it's important to keep in mind the different
reasons *why* people use one or the other (or both), and fluidly support
all of those use cases without losing any current functionality. So for
example:
- You should be able to mark a Virtual Desktop as "private"
- Virtual Desktops should be able to have different wallpapers, panel
settings, recent documents lists, etc.
- I'd like to see a visible-by-default method to switch between Virtual
Desktops, plus appropriate keyboard shortcuts
In addition to alleviating potential user confusion, combining them
while keeping current functionality may yield a PR advantage since it
would represent an opportunity to shift the narrative from "KDE has two
confusing versions of Virtual Desktops that nobody understands" to "KDE
Has the best, most feature-filled Virtual Desktops implementation!"
I have no opinions regarding how the two concepts are or ought to be
implemented on the backend.
Nate
On 07/04/2018 09:57 AM, Michail Vourlakos wrote:
2018-07-03 22:19 GMT+03:00 Eike Hein <h...@kde.org <mailto:h...@kde.org>>:
This is the relevant thread :-)
There are some technical decisions and commit reviews referencing MERGE
and this is why I proposed this thread.
Proposed technical decisions:
1. Virtual Desktops Ids from integers will be QVariants possibly strings
I guess
2. An empty Virtual Desktops list will mean to All Desktops even when
then user has enabled
manually all dekstops records
What are the reasons for [1] to be proposed?
[A] Desktops and Activities will share the same way and code to identify
themselves and thus it will be easier to maintain
(I cant object to that of course)
[B1] Activities and VDs will be able to be combined. That is the current
situation so I suppose [1] is just for [A]
(I have no problem with that)
OR
[B2] Activities and VDs will NOT be able to be combined. So the users in
the future will be able to use
Virtual Desktops OR Activities and never in combination.
(I think that this is what kwayland protocol is trying to support currently.
Even though that would break some user workflows for those users that
combine VDs and Activities together,
personally I also dont object BUT this must be communicated and prepared
to all parts
Plasma and VDG that is).
Things to consider for [B2]
[B2.1] How the user will be able to switch between VDs and Actitivities
easily?
[B2.2] How this dual way of doing things can be presented to the user in
a way that has meaning in order to
choose what prefers?
P.S. [A] and [B] are just my guesses feel free to correct me
