In KDE 4.5.0, every time I log into a session I get taken to Desktop #2 instead of Desktop #1. Anyone know how to change this?

This is in PCLinuxOS 2010.07. I have it set for four desktops. I'm using only one activity, a "Desktop" activity.

I've noticed that in ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc, the desktops appear in the file in this order:

Code: Select all

[Containments][134]
activity=desktop
activityId=2959c636-2131-432a-b226-8539b5a9f7a9
desktop=1
...

[Containments][135]
activity=desktop
activityId=2959c636-2131-432a-b226-8539b5a9f7a9
desktop=2
...

[Containments][136]
activity=desktop
activityId=2959c636-2131-432a-b226-8539b5a9f7a9
desktop=0
...

[Containments][160]
activity=desktop
activityId=2959c636-2131-432a-b226-8539b5a9f7a9
desktop=3
...

Don't know if that's important info or not, but thought I'd mention it since it seems to me that "desktop=0" ought to be the first one listed in the file.

Any help would be highly appreciated!

would that explain why my clock plasmoid keeps starting out on desk #2?

Same issue here with Mandriva 2010.1 64-bits.
Default desktop is Desktop 2.

Seems that if I go to the pager settings and un-check "Different widgets for each desktop," then each new session starts off in Desktop #1. If I put the check mark back, new sessions don't start off in Desktop #1 (after a lot of fiddling around with this issue, new sessions are starting in Desktop #4 here when "Different widgets for each desktop" is checked).

I believe new sessions start on whichever activity you were using when you last logged out.
I'm not sure if this is tied to session management settings or not (I'm currently using KDE on Win XP, which doesn't provide session management, but whichever activities were shown when I last closed plasma will be the ones shown when I start it).

Thanks, airdrik, but I have four virtual desktops and only one activity.

In your KDE Configuration Center (Systemsettings)
=> preference of starting with a NEW session each time

Normally, it does work according your expectations

@MALsPa
When you have "Different widgets on each desktop" it sets up a separate activity for each desktop, so that would explain why it would start on whichever desktop you were using when you logged out (assuming that is the behavior you are experiencing - the activity manager remembers that you were on the activity associated with desktop #2 last and loads that activity on desktop #2 when you log in) If you were on some other desktop when you logged out and it still switched to desktop #2, that would be a bug.

Afaik, Activity settings (including remembering the activities on logout) is not linked to session management (yet).

airdrik wrote:@MALsPa
When you have "Different widgets on each desktop" it sets up a separate activity for each desktop, so that would explain why it would start on whichever desktop you were using when you logged out (assuming that is the behavior you are experiencing - the activity manager remembers that you were on the activity associated with desktop #2 last and loads that activity on desktop #2 when you log in) If you were on some other desktop when you logged out and it still switched to desktop #2, that would be a bug.

Afaik, Activity settings (including remembering the activities on logout) is not linked to session management (yet).

I see. Well, it doesn't start out on the desktop I was on when I logged out, it always goes back to #4. It was going back only to #2 when I started this thread but somewhere during the course of trying different things to get this fixed it started defaulting to #4. Anyway, according to what you're saying, this is a bug.

rubentje1991 wrote:In your KDE Configuration Center (Systemsettings)
=> preference of starting with a NEW session each time

Normally, it does work according your expectations

Yes, I've gone back and forth with the different settings, trying "Restore previous session," "Restore manually saved session," and the default, "Start with an empty session."

Thanks for taking the time to try to help with this, folks, I really appreciate it.

airdrik wrote:When you have "Different widgets on each desktop" it sets up a separate activity for each desktop

To me, this idea seems quite at odds with the idea that each activity has its own set of virtual desktops.

Further, looking at things here, there is no way that I know of to tell that the activity shown in Desktop #1, whether I open up "Activities..." or whether I go into "Desktop Settings" and click on "Activity," is any different from the activities shown in Desktops #2 thru #4. They all have the exact same name. The same exact icon, with the same exact coloring, shows up in the Activities tool, no matter which desktop I'm in.

I'm not really convinced that I have separate activities for each desktop here because I don't see anything that shows that to be the case.

MALsPa wrote:

airdrik wrote:When you have "Different widgets on each desktop" it sets up a separate activity for each desktop

To me, this idea seems quite at odds with the idea that each activity has its own set of virtual desktops.

It is. Airc, the "Different widgets on each desktop" setting is a workaround that the devs put in place because many people were getting confused over the difference and why they couldn't have different wallpapers on each desktop (at least not without this setting). If you use this option then you don't get the "each activity has its own set of virtual desktops" setup. Previous to 4.5, activities were merely virtual desktops for plasma (activities only managed the desktop - wallpaper and plasma widgets, each activity manages a single plasma desktop), and afaik the only thing that was added in 4.5 was the ability to associate applications (windows) with activities (so as to create the idea of "each activity has its own set of virtual desktops", and start moving activities towards managing more than just the desktop plasma widgets).

I've never used the "Different widgets on each desktop" setting, so I'm not familiar with how exactly it presents the activities (and I'm not currently in a place where I can experiment). They may all start with the same name, but if you go to Desktop #1 -> Desktop Settings -> Activity (which is the per-Activity settings) and change the name, does that change the name for all activities or just the activity on Desktop #1? When you open up the activities menu, do you get 4 icons (even if all 4 show the same icon) or just 1? Can you add activities? If so, does it add a desktop for each activity added (I assume that it does go the other way around - adding a desktop automatically adds a new blank activity)?

Okay, starting with the way I have things set right now... Four virtual desktops, one activity, "Different widgets for each desktop" selected.

airdrik wrote:When you open up the activities menu, do you get 4 icons (even if all 4 show the same icon) or just 1?

There is only one activity shown.

airdrik wrote:if you go to Desktop #1 -> Desktop Settings -> Activity (which is the per-Activity settings) and change the name, does that change the name for all activities or just the activity on Desktop #1?

I changed the name from "desktop" to "desktop1." It changed the name for the one activity. When I went to different desktops, each desktop had the same single activity, and for each desktop the name of the activity is "desktop1."

airdrik wrote:Can you add activities? If so, does it add a desktop for each activity added (I assume that it does go the other way around - adding a desktop automatically adds a new blank activity)?

Yes, I can add activities. I added a new one, "desktop2." When I switched over to the new activity, it has its own set of four (apparently new) virtual desktops, each with the same default wallpaper. In the new activity, under Desktop Settings > Activity, the name of the activity is the same ("desktop2") no matter which virtual desktop I'm in.

I went into the pager settings and added a 5th desktop, but that didn't give me any new activity, or at least there was no additional activity shown in the activities list. So, I changed the settings back to only four desktops.

After doing all that, I logged out and logged back in. Now there is a duplicate "desktop1" activity along with the original "desktop1" and the "desktop2." In the duplicate "desktop1," there are four new virtual desktops, each showing the default wallpaper.

I unlocked the widgets, removed the duplicate "desktop1," locked the widgets, logged out and back in. Now only the two activities are listed -- "desktop1" and "desktop2."

From the original activity named "desktop1," and from virtual desktop #1, I log out one more time. When I log back in, I am at virtual desktop #4 in the original activity named "desktop1" (should have used some other kind of name for my activities to avoid further confusion!).

Ok, so apparently they changed the behavior of the "Different widgets on each desktop" from what I remember (or I may just have been remembering differently). So using the "Different widgets on each desktop", you can use 2 activities and 4 desktops to have 8 different sets of widgets (and 8 different wallpapers)?

BTW, the blank "desktop1" activity showing up is a bug, I've seen similar behavior - creating new activites at login and at other seemingly random times - without the "Different widgets on each desktop" setting. It's probably already been reported, but we should make sure.

As for the wrong desktop on login, that's a bug (there should be a configuration option, or at least it should follow some sane behavior like either always start on desktop 1, or always start on last used desktop). It seems to be remembering something that doesn't make sense.

airdrik wrote:So using the "Different widgets on each desktop", you can use 2 activities and 4 desktops to have 8 different sets of widgets (and 8 different wallpapers)?

Yeah, that's what I'm seeing here. It's like having 8 different virtual desktops.

airdrik wrote:As for the wrong desktop on login, that's a bug (there should be a configuration option, or at least it should follow some sane behavior like either always start on desktop 1, or always start on last used desktop). It seems to be remembering something that doesn't make sense.

I am still seeing this problem in PCLOS even after about 10 months since I first installed PCLOS KDE 2010.07.

I haven't run into this problem with any other distro where I've been running KDE4.

If it's a bug, maybe it's a PCLOS bug. Or maybe something I did early on messed things up -- after all, PCLOS KDE 2010.07 was my first go-round with KDE4, and I played around with activities without knowing at all what I was doing.

I can't figure out what exactly is controlling things -- why exactly KDE4 starts out at Desktop #4 no matter what desktop I'm using when I log out.

Again, I see one activity under "Activities." I'm using the "Different widgets for each desktop" setting. This is how I have things set up in each distro where I'm using KDE4.

Well, a PCLOS KDE 2011 snapshot should be coming out soon. I'll probably completely re-install PCLOS at that time, then set things up like I have them now and see if the problem is still there. But I'm posting this "follow-up" here and bumping this thread in case anyone knows anything that might solve this problem.