Hello!

WHen hitting STRG + F12 I get the transparent dashboard overlay. On my system this is just a color change since obviously I cannot add widgets or mini programs to that layer.

So, what is the intended use here?

And if it is just an atavism how can I remove the dashboard completely?

Thx for some clarification here,
piedro

p.s.: Kde Plasma 5.3.2 on Arch

Afaiu the dashboard only exist for legacy reasons and is now equivalent to "show" desktop and supposed to be dropped with some future release.

Really? That is very disappointing to me...
So let me get that straight:

1 - there is no individual number of virtual desktops for different activities anymore:
if your working activity requires six virtual desktops, your activity for checking social media forced to create six desktops also...

2 - there are no individual widgets for different virtual desktops anymore:
so your process monitor widget, network activity widget and weather thingy all show up on every desktop within one activity

3 - there are no individual views (folder, search, paper, grid...) nor background images for different virtual desktop:
so each activity is a one trick pony with undistinguishable cloned copies to tab around

4 - there is no way to hide individual or even all widgets once they've been attached to the desktop:
the only way to hide the widget clutter is to create a dedicated activity and switch to this one which completely destroys the concept of widgets as a quick access point to information or tasks without loosing focus of your work at hand - that's the conceptual reason why Apple created the dashboard and named it as such...

The SOLUTION to make use of these completely castrated virtual desktop functionality as I read is to use dedicated activities for every different view, functionality and context I have.

But that is no solution at all, on the contrary it is a regression as far back as to the first days of gnome's virtual desktops.
Here is why:

5 - there is no way to sort, group or organize the recommended multiple activities
so unless you're using only very few good luck rotating to the right one or assign keyboard shortcuts to every single one...

6 - there is no way to have different panels on different activities, like left panel here - right panel there:
now at least there could be different panel configurations with different indicators but no, no use of drawers and classical applications menu on one activity but a docker panel style on another, every activity has the same panels which makes stuff like distinguishing a "work" and "fun" activity with obviously very different preferences kind of pointless

7 - there is no way even to use individual themes or appearance settings for different activities:
let's forget about all the obvious use cases for activities like "night view" or "day view" or "focused work view" and "deco fest leisure view"... even more annoying: the more different your use case for different activities gets the more minimalistic your panel and appearance setup has to be to consistently work and blend in with activity roles!


So after my initial question "What is the use of the dashboard?" is answered by "it's useless now and will be removed" I have to wonder:

What is the use for Plasma virtual desktops apart from cloning the desktop and cluttering all activities in the process?"

What are the goals or use cases for activities? Other than that that have not been achieved by the classic gnome 2 virtual desktop or have been done more consistent by the gnome 3 setup.


Please if someone could elaborate here on the idea, vision and concept behind all that,
why it's been necessary to strip it down to a bare fracture of the functionality of former KDE
and what are the plans on how to build on this very basic groundwork for the future?


Thx for reading,
piedro

Oops, missed this point:

8 - no way to move a widget from one activity to another:
individual program windows can be shown or moved to different activities but the widgets (the only core functionality in distinguishing different activities!) has to be removed and added at the aimed activity again. Seems consistent that then in this case you have to redo your sizing/settings etc.

Will this be changed?

thx, p.