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So I'm working on a project. In worker mode, I've got my text editor, my graphics program, word document edit, web browser, etc all opened documents pertinent to whatever I'm working on (KDE apps).

OK, time to close up shop / take a break / put it off to tomorrow.

Close everything. Now in casual mode, got my music player, web browser, video/tv player. Anyway you get the idea, something totally different.

Would be great to get back to my 'worker mode' with as little effort and as much retained workspace (documents loaded, scroll positions, window states/positions, etc) as possible. Hopefully I'm missing something in the KDE Session Management capability since I think this is really just like reloading manually saved sessions upon login, and I noticed there's saveAs and sessionList dbus call for ksmserver but I don't see how to manually load them if this sort of thing is theoretically already implemented.

What I think would be very useful is an on-demand GUI directed session store/restore ability, lets you select which currently open apps KDE or non-KDE (to at least re-execute) to include/exclude in the saved session, along with list, thumbnail snapshot. The works.

KDE already supports sessions. They can be saved manually, and are what is the base for automatic restoration of applications on logon.

bcooksley wrote:KDE already supports sessions. They can be saved manually, and are what is the base for automatic restoration of applications on logon.

As far as I can see (from the session manager), KDE just supports one saved session. I'm supposed to have an option in the K-Menu to save the current session, but I cannot find this options anywhere. Also, if this did work, I could just save one session which would then be loaded when I login in KDE, not on demand.

Anyway, I think peaches idea is a very useful one but maybe this could somehow be combined with Plama's desktop activities? Anybody any idea on how to do this?

bcooksley wrote:KDE already supports sessions. They can be saved manually, and are what is the base for automatic restoration of applications on logon.

Yeah, session management is a really great KDE feature. I'd love to be able to make greater use of session management with additional manageability capability.

job wrote:As far as I can see (from the session manager), KDE just supports one saved session. I'm supposed to have an option in the K-Menu to save the current session, but I cannot find this options anywhere.

In System Settings => Session Manager, you have to set On Login to "Restore manually saved session", then an option to save the session will show up in the Leave tab of the Kickoff menu. Or use the dbus call to ksmserver. You can apparently save sessions under different names with the saveAs dbus call (only way I've discovered how), but I don't have any idea how to restore these besides login (and only the default session). Hopefully they can be...

job wrote:
Anyway, I think peaches idea is a very useful one but maybe this could somehow be combined with Plama's desktop activities? Anybody any idea on how to do this?

...activity you mean like Folder View / Desktop activity..? I probably don't fully understand the Activity plasma thing.. What sort of idea do you have in mind here?

peaches wrote:...activity you mean like Folder View / Desktop activity..? I probably don't fully understand the Activity plasma thing.. What sort of idea do you have in mind here?

With Plasma activities I mean the ability of making different plasmoid setups (which plasmoids are shown, where they are shown and their configuration) and switching between those setups. I think it would be nice if not only the plasmoid setup was linked to an activity but also the running applications.

I hope this makes my idea a little clearer:-)

Wouldn't it be a nice idea to join that with "virtual group of application to start with krunner"? Making real use of the Activities to dynamically create, use and save on exit them for different tasks.

job and Furanki, I like both those ideas too!

I do domething similar to this with a few shellscripts, some of which are executed by KDEs autostart function (apps common for all my activities) and some that I start manually through krunner depending on what I want to do this session. It would be nice to have a graphical interface for setting up the different profiles and a way to select profile during login. You get my vote!

It would be good if it could be integrated to KDM, such that we could choose which session to restore in the login manager. So one could have different sessions for work, home, private, etc. It would be greater to have different profiles instead of only sessions. I mean, different themes, wallpaper, startup programs and other data. If the different profiles could reuse some templates it would be even greater. Of course, this seems too difficult to implement by now, but that is why we call it brainstorm. It doesn't mean that all great ideas will be implemented, but who knows some day...

rosenfeld wrote:It would be good if it could be integrated to KDM, such that we could choose which session to restore in the login manager. So one could have different sessions for work, home, private, etc. It would be greater to have different profiles instead of only sessions. I mean, different themes, wallpaper, startup programs and other data. If the different profiles could reuse some templates it would be even greater. Of course, this seems too difficult to implement by now, but that is why we call it brainstorm. It doesn't mean that all great ideas will be implemented, but who knows some day...

At least for now you can set up different users all in the same system group, or play with different KDEHOME style environment variables to do some of tha, anyway.

Also, I just stumbled upon this.. a little bit of that at least with plasma, maybe you'll find it interesting http://www.notmart.org/index.php/Softwa ... d_plasming

@peaches: seems like there are a bunch of people sharing your same sentiments. very nice. you get my vote.

here are some more links to discussions/brainstorms etc in this same regard:

kde-productivity-e ... l#pid73969

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/19668/

and a proof-of-concept video here

http://www.notmart.org/index.php/Softwa ... d_plasming

Wow! This would be very useful!

job wrote:

peaches wrote:
...activity you mean like Folder View / Desktop activity..? I probably don't fully understand the Activity plasma thing.. What sort of idea do you have in mind here?

With Plasma activities I mean the ability of making different plasmoid setups (which plasmoids are shown, where they are shown and their configuration) and switching between those setups. I think it would be nice if not only the plasmoid setup was linked to an activity but also the running applications.

I hope this makes my idea a little clearer:-)

afaik different activities don't fully support this yet as it would require different task bars (kmail shown in this systray of activity 1 but not in that systray of activity 2 for example) and plasmoids (as already mentioned).

But yes, this would be great and something I have been looking forward to as soon as the idea of activities surfaced

I think activities will be able to be associated with windows/programs in 4.5. Check the video: http://chani.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/a ... es-in-4-5/

In 4.5, this is just a tease (to quote Chani).

For 4.6 (and later) we are planning (amongst a lot of other things) what is proposed in this brainstorm.

Chani will be probably working on the session stuff, and it is supposed to be finished for 4.6.