Hi all!

You all know what the current design for the activity switcher looks like:
http://youtu.be/nVUTww3oMhA?t=7s

It has received positive feedback, except for one thing. The current activity is not highlighted properly.

I'm going to need some input from you guys (preferably mockups) to design the delegate that shows a running activity. It should be:
- as slick as the current one
- it should show the activity name, icon, and a wallpaper
- it should have a distinct 'current activity' highlight
- it should have a distinct 'item has the keyboard focus' highlight that is separate from the 'current activity' highlight (mind that an item can have both the focus and be the current activity)

The current implementation shows the usual highlight that we are using in a list-view, and that is not sufficient here, since the highlight is only visible as a border around the wallpaper.

Thanks in advance!

I'm bummed that I've been so swamped that this one fell off the radar for me Ivan. I'm really sorry.

I'll be sure to give it some attention as soon I get a chance. BUT, if there are others here who have ideas for this PLEASE share them here. Activities are among the most unique and compelling features of the Plasma desktop and this is a great opportunity to influence the design!

Let's all, yes me included, make an effort to help support our developers when they come knocking. Remember, you don't have to do pretty mockups to participate. A simple idea that you share, even just as text, can be enough get the ball rolling.

Well then maybe something like this https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/63396655/active.mkv
Only the current activity has colors(and the play icon) the rest is grayed. Instead of highlight the selected/hovered activity is moved and colored. Forgot about the icons ;P

EraX wrote:Well then maybe something like this https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/63396655/active.mkv
Only the current activity has colors(and the play icon) the rest is grayed. Instead of highlight the selected/hovered activity is moved and colored. Forgot about the icons ;P

Kudos for making an animation, very neat! The only disadvantage I can see with this approach is that it loses some information - for example, when switching activities, the colors could be used to quickly identify activities.

It looks like Alt+Tabbing switches activity immediately, and it's pretty fast and smooth. Maybe we could do the same for the arrow keys? In that case there would only be one selection, and thus less confusion.

@alake No problem, we are all swamped with work

@erax Nice animation. The problem with graying out (or desaturating) is that the effect is usually used when something is disabled. A few people already proposed this, but it could lead to confusion.

> It looks like Alt+Tabbing switches activity immediately,
> and it's pretty fast and smooth.
> Maybe we could do the same for the arrow keys?

Not bad, not bad at all

Will try it out.

ivan wrote:@erax Nice animation. The problem with graying out (or desaturating) is that the effect is usually used when something is disabled. A few people already proposed this, but it could lead to confusion.

There is a simple fix to that. Just add one extra lable/separator at top, "Running activities" just like the stopped activities.

It is not the problem of the labels. Activities are *never* disabled - you can always switch to any of those. So, in this case, the switcher would work sufficiently well even without any labels at all (like the version from old plasma).

The issue is that we need to follow the same visual language patterns that the other parts of the system (both the workspace and the applications) use.

To make an awful analogy here - the fact that we have no corporal punishment, does not imply that we can re-purpose the phrase 'sentenced to die' to mean something completely different.