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issue with actiivities

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fraterchaos
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issue with actiivities

Mon Oct 07, 2013 5:08 am
Hi, hoping maybe someone can help me with this...

I had things all set up just the way I wanted them in KDE (Linux Mint 15 KDE) and was very very happy with it... one of the things I had done was to set the mouse focus on mouse over instead of click to focus... I was using my browser (Firefox) and had the window nearly maximized but not quite (in desktop 1 of 4) and an instant message popped up in Pidgin.

Because the browser was nearly maximized, and because I had it set to mouse-over focus, I couldn't seem to get the IM window to the top... I tried clicking the button for it in the panel, but the desktop seemed sluggish (I had some other stuff running in other desktops that were eating a lot of cycles)...

Anyway, when I finally managed to get the IM window to the top, I was going to tell it to move to desktop 2, where my Pidgin Buddy List was already located, and I'd have no problems with large windows blocking the IM window... but (and here's where everything went wrong) when I clicked the title bar of the IM window and was going to tell it to move, somehow my mouse got off on the wrong selection, I ended up selecting "New Activity" and had created a new activity before I could even stop myself...

Now, I have not actually used Activities at all before this, and really don't need them for anything... and I had no idea what I shoudl do as whatever I had done made my desktop return to the KDE default desktop, made all my open apps disappear from the panel, and left me totally baffled... I tried going to the Activities "panel" or "dashborad" or whatever you call it, saw two things there, I didn't stop to look at them and just clicked the first one listed, and (I don't remember exactly) I think somehow told it to delete that activity hoping this would restore things to normal... instead, things stayed as they were, and all I had now was an activity called "Add New Activity"

I have since figured out that I probably deleted my original settings, and will have to set everything back the way I liked it, and I can deal with that (although I wish I'd know that something like this could happen) But the problem now is I have this New Activity notice or something up in the top right corner on the cashew menu, and can't make it go away... somehow, the desktop and window decorations settings I am using are not working right in the activities panel thing, and no text shows on the buttons when I try to edit the activities that are there...

All I want to do is get rid of the "New Activity" text in the upper right corner of my screen... well, and if possible, find some way oof not accidentally activating activities again and having it screw up all my settings... I don't NEED them, I would prefer not to have them, but from what I have read, they can't be turned off... so how can I set things so that I won't lose my settiings again and how do I make the "New Activity" text go away?

I tried a few things listed on a couple of sites and message boards, and nothing seems to work to make the text go away... and why do the buttons on the activities listed all appear white with very very light gray text when I have things set to dark (almost black) buttons with white text?

Do I create a new activity once I have the settings back the way I want them? I know the original settings are probably gone... unless booting into the recovery mode would somehow restore them (but my guess is it won't)

Can anyone explain this stuff to me... none of the FAQs and how to's about Activities tells me anything of any use
fraterchaos
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Re: issue with actiivities

Tue Oct 08, 2013 3:10 pm
I posted this question a couple days ago, and I'm experiencing the same problems and it seems nobody can provide any answer...

I'm using KDE 4.10.5 on Linux Mint 15 KDE version...

Since accidentally creating a new activity and then deleting whatever activity was there, nothing seems to work as it should... when I boot the machine, it used to be set to open the apps that had been open in my last session, now it opens one of them. (in this case the bitTorrent client) and the one it opens is one I don't really care if it opens it... the ones I really want open, which I always have iopen, are not being opened!

My browser was set up (Firefox) with pinned app tabs to all the sites I normally visit and it was opening automatically at boot up... now it doesn't open, and when I open it manually, all my pinned tabs are gone (Imagine having to reopen 8 web pages every time you open your browser) Firefox IS set to always open whatever was open in the last session as well.

I have checked and the setting to have KDE (or Linux) open the same things that were open last session is still turned on... so it should be iopening everything that was open when I shut down.

I thought that perhaps what I needed was to create an activity that would save all my current settings for next time, but as far as i can tell, a new activity will only save the settings for one virtual desktop, and then basically only the plasma widgets and wallpaper (or at least that's what the docs seem to indicate)

So WTF is screwing up my other applications and stopping them from loading when I start a new session? Why would Firefox not load any of the pinned app tabs? Why does it auto start one application that was running last session, but not the others.

I REALLY need some help with this as I can't find squat in the docs for KDE version 4.10.5 (that's an issue too... is 4.10.5 the same as 4.5, or am I using some ancient 4.1 version and if that's the case, why am I not getting updated to anything higher?) But I'm assuming 4.10.5 is 4.5 and everywhere I look I find that docs and FAQs and such do not yet exist for 4.5


And worse still, every single doc I read about activities says to use some sort of ZUI Zooming User Interface, and that there is a Zoom button on the activities menu... sorry, but in Linux Mint 15 KDE, there's no zoom button, I have no idea how to follow any of the tutorials or examples since I can't zoom like it says

To be honest, I really like KDE, EXCEPT for this whole activities thing... it seems as if it's some experimental idea that they really have not gotten all the bugs worked out (and I don't mean programming bugs, I mean they haven;t even really figured out exactly how and what the "Activites" are supposed to do, how much they are supposed to control, what parts of the system they affect) and yet they are still foisting it on users and saying "well, if you don't like it don't use it"

All well and good, I won't use it... but nobody seems to be able to tell me how I can get my system back to the way I liked it, so apps booted automatically at start up, with all the same settings they had at log-out, and all this "activity" stuff would just stop interfering with me!

If you're going to add a "feature" that can activly affect people's systems without them realizing it, and you haven't even really figured out what all it can do, what it shoudl and shouldn't do, and can't document how to use it, well then you ought to at the very least provide some way to turn it OFF!
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scummos
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Re: issue with actiivities

Tue Oct 08, 2013 4:20 pm
Sorry, there's so much text that I'm not totally sure what your problem is. ;)

There's a shortcut for switching activities, I think Meta+Tab by default, but by pressing it again a few times you can switch to your original activity. You can also disable the shortcut and remove the activity switcher to more or less completely hide the concept of activities, if you want.

If you think your setup is screwed and you want to start fresh, rename your ~/.kde4 folder (to e.g. .kde4-old).

Greetings,
Sven


I'm working on the KDevelop IDE.
fraterchaos
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Re: issue with actiivities

Tue Oct 08, 2013 4:40 pm
the problem is that I accidentally created an activity, and when i did all the apps open in other desktops disappeared.

I did not know what was happening, and opened the activities dashboard, saw an activity there and deleted it, after which all my settings were gone. Now none of my applications auto start at log in, all my browser settings are gone when I open it, even though everything is set to remember both those things.

All I want is to not have Activites interfering with anything. I can no longer have any programs auto start at boot... I can't get my firefox tabs to auto load like they always did before. One program auto starts at boot, and it's the one program I don't need to have autostart

switvhing between activities doesn't help, as I do not have any idea how to create an activity that will remeber all the apps I had running in all desktops and the settings they were using! And on my system, the activity dashborad doesn't even look like the screen shots I have found, the activities themselves don't have the same buttons and what buttons they do have are white with very light grey text that i can't read! And changing things in my theme or desktop settings has no effect on the activities buttons!


I'm very sorry that my questions are so long, but I really have no idea what any of this activity stuff is and I don't need it and would rather not use it... but it's there and it's affecting everything on the system and I can't find any documents that seem to pertain to how I can either stop it from interferiing or set it up so that my system works like it did before... and I can't even determine if the documents I am reading about it pertain to my version of KDE since my version reports as 4.10.5 and all the docs I see reference 4.4 or 4.5 is 4.10.5 the same as 4.5? If so, I can't find any good tutorials or documentation about 4.5 because it says theose FAQs have not been written yet!

I'm really sorry that nobody seems to have the time to answer my questions or even ask for more info or try to clarify... Maybe I ought to think about ditching KDE until you people have some actual documents that apply to the version I'm using (whatever version that is)?
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google01103
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Re: issue with actiivities

Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:01 pm
re reading activities: if your theme is translucent and you desktop background is white('sh) that may be your problem, try a dark background or change just the panel theme to a non-translucent one

what program autostarts at boot?

how are you trying to autostart programs?

Firefox shouldn't be related to KDE, are you talking about tabs open at the time FF is closed?


OpenSuse Leap 42.1 x64, Plasma 5.x

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scummos
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Re: issue with actiivities

Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:04 pm
4.10.5 is not the same as 4.5. The latter is actually 4.5.0.

Probably what happened is that you switched to a different activity, and then deleted your previous one, which would indeed delete all your desktop settings.

But I don't entirely understand the situation you're in now. Can you name a few examples of settings which are not being saved? That should never be the case.
Especially, something like firefox restoring tabs on startup is definitely entirely unrelated to KDE's activities.

Greetings,
Sven


I'm working on the KDevelop IDE.
fraterchaos
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Re: issue with actiivities

Tue Oct 08, 2013 11:58 pm
well, I assume I have this fixed...

one thing, on my distro, I don't have a ~/kde4 folder, I have ~/kde
but I assumed it would be the same thing, so I renamed it ~/kde-old and it created a new ~/kde folder and everything returned to the way Linux Mint had come "out of the box"

So I spend an hour resetting all my wallpaper, running apps, checking settings and so on, and then rebooted and it is relaoding apps and retaining settings as it should

I would kind of like to know why the Activities dashboard and the Activities on my system do not operate as the docs say and why they don't even look the same and how I could avoid accidentally triggering this sort of behaviour again, but I assume I just have to be careful not to ever create any activies
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scummos
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Re: issue with actiivities

Wed Oct 09, 2013 12:43 am
Well, creating activities is not a problem -- deleting them is ;)
If you accidentially switch to a different activity, you can just go back with Meta+Tab. You can also turn that shortcut off in systemsettings.

Greetings,
Sven


I'm working on the KDevelop IDE.


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