Hi,
since everything is more stable in Beta 2 I am trying to explore the activies, the ZUI and working with different desktops. As understand this feature is still under heavy development. So may be some of my confusions have to do with that. According to the FAQ on userbase the ZUI allows to group different plasmoids. It appears to me that these groups are now labbeld activities. Am I correct?
What I am not sure is where these groups are. Placing the activity switcher on the desktop, appears to switch between different desktops with the difference that the activity switcher does not seem to relate to the names different Desktops have been given in the Desktop switcher.
Furthermore: Using the ZUI showed me 5 desktops, I currently only have 4. I once had 5 while playing but reduced them to 4 again. So I am not sure. This may be a bug or may it is a feature and the ZUI is not showing the desktops but something else.

So far my confusion. Now how I expected it to be:
- having different desktops with different dashboards (that seems to be meant so, when "configuring plasma" in ZUI-mode
- What I am missing is the possibility to place an applet on all dashboard (like the activity switcher) like it is possible with application windows.
- The naming issue confuses me. I am not sure what to make out of "activities".When I add another activity it just seems to add another desktop. With BTW the annoying feature that removal of an activity desktop can not be chosen freely.

Can someone clarify? It is better to stop playing around with in it KDE 4.3?

Markum

It appears to me that these groups are now labbeld activities. Am I correct?

Yep

Put the activity widget in a panel, right click on current activity (desktop) and give it a representative name - the change will be reflected in the activity switcher plasmoid.

No idea what a ZUI is, sorry.

I've been using different activities with different widgets (one for fun, one for system observation and another for working on files) since KDE 4.1 - it appears to be working fine and has for me since then.

markum wrote:According to the FAQ on userbase the ZUI allows to group different plasmoids. It appears to me that these groups are now labbeld activities. Am I correct?

Yes.

markum wrote:What I am not sure is where these groups are. Placing the activity switcher on the desktop, appears to switch between different desktops with the difference that the activity switcher does not seem to relate to the names different Desktops have been given in the Desktop switcher.

Here's your problem: you're mixing activities and virtual desktops. The two are not
interchangeable like that.

Let's say you have three activities. Fun, Work, and System for example. In fun, you have the comic plasmoid. In work, you have the folderview directed to a work-in-progress-folder. In System, you have various system status plasmoids.

At the same time you have four virtual desktops. You have dolphin opened on one, and firefox on another. The current desktop is the one where dolphin is residing.

Now, if you switch activity all that changes is which plasmoids are displayed. The desktop with dolphin will still be active. Similarly, if you switch desktops the plasmoids won't change.

markum wrote:Furthermore: Using the ZUI showed me 5 desktops, I currently only have 4. I once had 5 while playing but reduced them to 4 again. So I am not sure. This may be a bug or may it is a feature and the ZUI is not showing the desktops but something else.

It sounds like the ZUI shows 5 activties you have defined at some point, not 5 desktops.

markum wrote:- having different desktops with different dashboards (that seems to be meant so, when "configuring plasma" in ZUI-mode

That's indeed what that is for. Or rather: make activity=desktop. You can also have an independent dashboard (the one you get when you hit ctrl-f12) if you want to. By that I mean: usually the dashboard shows the plasmoids of whatevery activity is currently in use (i.e. comic for the fun activity). When it's independent, you always get the same plasmoids in the dashboard regardless of what activity you're currently using.

markum wrote:- What I am missing is the possibility to place an applet on all dashboard (like the activity switcher) like it is possible with application windows.

I miss that too. The activity switcher, however, works IMO best in a auto-hiding panel rather than on the desktop.

In short, don't confuse activities with virtual desktops. They can be made to be the same (or at least look to be the same) but by default they're not.

I hope this clarifies things at least a little.