I just upgraded to KDE 4.3.4 and it looks like someone finally took the developer that invented activities out behind the wood shed.

There is now an option to select each desktop as a Plain Desktop where everything acts like it used to in older KDE releases, and every other desktop system, where you can put separate wall paper on each desktop.

No Activities!!! Gone. No Stupid Cashew.!!!

Problem solved!!

jsamyth wrote:I just upgraded to KDE 4.3.4 and it looks like someone finally took the developer that invented activities out behind the wood shed.

jsamyth - thats just made my day - big big smile

just gotta wait for fedora to catch up, hopefully shouldnt be too long, oh joy oh bliss

and 10/10 for the man that made the call

Gurrrrrrr...

Wallpapers still migrate around, and can't be relied upon to remain
on the dekstops they were assigned.

This suggests Activities are still being used, but simply hidden from us
and there are still more activities that you thought you defined.

Developer: I'll make you a deal. Put your hand in a vice. Each time my wall paper moves or a different activity shows up I will send you and email. You then tighten the vice 1/4 turn. mmm'ok?

Well yesterday I started to make the activity thingy according to Thailandian's recipe.
But I quit halfway.I don't mind changing configs by hand,have been doing that for 6 years in Gentoo.BUT I'd like to know what it means and why something is in there.
So I started to fiddle around more or les at random.
First I clicked on the cashew!!!
Yes jsamyth it won't work at all if you don't use it.
Just found out it's called the dashboard.
Well anyway here's what I did yesterday and it works ok.
BIG FAT WARNING:When you're finished don't click it again!
It'll screw up everything.
Click on the cashew_>zoom out.
You'll get a menu click configure plasma.
tick Different activity each desktop.
apply and close zoom in again.
Now go to one of your desktops (empty!) rightclick
and chose the last one which is either desktop or folderview depending on how it's set.
Enter the name of the activity you want on this desktop.
If it's set to folderview change it to desktop.
Add the wallpaper of your choice.
Click apply and ok.
Now rightclick again and choose add widgets.
Choose Folderview and click add widget and close.
You'll get the "container" on the upper left with either folders or regular application icons.
If you get folders instead of icons click on the wrench shown on the right when your cursor hovers this container.
Tick folderview and you should now get icons.
This will give you all the icons you previously installed.
Drag the container out of the way and pick the icons you want for this desktop and drop them where you want them.
To get rid of the container click on the x of the sidebar that pops up when hover over the container.
I hope this is of any benefit to you all.
And I filed a bug about things being clobbered by the cashew.
Gerard.

That's all well and good Gerard, but we ALL knew how to set up activities and widgets already. You have told us nothing new here.

Its not setting them up that is the problem, and there are already dozens of bug reports on the Cashew resetting things.

The problem is it won't stay the way you set it even if you never touch the cashew again.

The problem is that new activities will be generated at seemingly random intervals, and you can not get rid of them.

The problem is that you zoom out and then click on an activity to zoom back in (because that is the only place the magnifier appears) THAT activity is placed on the current desktop. Now your Accounting tools widgets appear on your Programming desk top, because you forgot you were on your programming desktop when you zoomed out, and there is no way to determine this visually.

Yes Gerard, It won't work reliably if you DO use it.

Worse, it insists on working unreliably when we thought we had it shut off by selecting plain desktop.

jsamyth wrote:Gurrrrrrr...

Wallpapers still migrate around, and can't be relied upon to remain
on the dekstops they were assigned.

oh.

thanks for updates anyway - at least I didnt waste nn hours upgrading/messing/hacking/crying

Thailandian/Gerard - brave stuff indeed. but its not the way forward

@jsamyth,
You are quite right!
What a mess.
Being a stubborn person I didn't give up however.
It seems I have found a way to circumvent the cashew from clobbering the rc file.
I haven't done much testing yet but just clicking on the damn thing now is safe.
What I did is simply preventing ~/kde4/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc to be written to.
This takes a simple command like so:
chmod 400 ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc.
This will make it read only.
If in the future you need to revert to read/write you can issue the same command with "400" replaced by 600.
I am going to do some further testing to see if it now is clobberfree.
Grtz,
Gerard.

Well it isn't.
However I can live with what happens:
I opened plasma config after zooming out.
I then changed it and closed.
Zoomed in again and checked.
Then rebooted,the hotkeys "ctrl-Fx had changed.
I got different desktops but the good thing is the wallpapers and the activities and the icons where still the same.
Ctrl-F6 and ctrl-F3 had changed places.
I am not sure which config file is responsible.
I see some inconsistencies in kglobalshortcutsrc.
And the timestamp shows it was recently changed.
After all you can hit ctrl-F8 to find your activity.
Gerard.

I rebooted a couple of times and now automagically all the desktops/ctrl-Fx are back to the original setup.
I hope things will stay that way.
Gerard.

I also added and later removed icons from several activity desktops.
No problems other than that some were installed without title.
Gerard.

Still working ok.
Gerard.
Edit:Just checked the ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc file:
the timestamp is still dec 5 1505.

Still working ok.
Timestamp of ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc still at dec5 15:05.
As far as I'm concerned this works ok.
However it's not as it should be.
Gerard.

Mine is still trashing itself on a regular basis.

Bottom Panel will not honor the CENTERED bit upon a reboot.

Desktop Background Images (activities) STILL migrate even when Plain Desktop selected for all desktops.

I now have 8 activities created for 4 desktops and I can't get rid of
any of them.

Can't SOMEBODY find the developer of this mess and make him pay attention!!!

Still going strong.
@jsamyth
Have you installed "mc" ?
If not install it and check /home/usernamr/.kde/share/config/
mc is a clone of Norton Commander of the DOS era.
Very handy tool,I couldn't do without.
Gerard.

Here's a link to Gentoo forums with posts regarding the same problem.
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-80 ... ight-.html
Gerard.