Since the first day I installed 4.3, I configured it to use different activities on different desktops (I have 4), and it worked perfectly. But yesterday I logged in to discover that my first desktop had a different activity, that there was a new activity I did not create, that the other two desktops had two old activities but on different order and that my main activity was lost. Doing a zoom out, I discovered that I had 5 activities (for 4 desktops...) and that I was not able to delete the new one nor change which one went with which desktop, so it was impossible to reach my main activity. Then I disabled "one activity per desktop", deleted the new activity and set the one activity per desktop again... and again the fifth activity was created moving the first one to the limbo.
There was no kde updates to my system (openSUSE 11.1 64 bits), only a kernel update, so I'm really puzzled...
Weird detail: now the activities on the "activities bar" are shown on different order respect to the real distribution when a zoom out is performed...
Any idea? I mean, other than deleting the plasma config files and start from scratch

This is getting weird... Today I edited one of the activities and instead of changing it, I obtained TWO copies of the original activity changed...

This is a very common bug. https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=197672

Presently Activities and Desktops are a hopeless mess. Keeping everything locked at all times can help, but even that is no guarantee.

There is really no hope of recovery once your desktops/activities decide to
go nuts, and the only real solution is to delete all files that begin with "plasma" from /home/[user]/.kde/share/config and start over.

What can you do with activities that you could not do with Desktops as found under KDE3 and Gnome and xFCE4, and etc? Nothing! Nothing except constantly chase them down and fix them up.

The concept of activities is a Totally Failed concept. It should be scrapped and just allow us to start the Calendar or calculator or other utility on each desktop, and apply a wallpaper to each as was done in the past.

I'm sorry, but I've struggled with it for weeks, and the longest I could manage to go was 3 days without the activities multiplying in the background and desktops getting totally trashed. The developers clearly don't use their own product or they would see this immediately.

Can't we just vote a vote to force a way to de-activate activities all together?

Thanks for the link. Not the same problem, but seem the same cause...
I do not agree that activities are a failed concept. It is a non working implementation, yes, but the concept is good. I use activities a lot and like them, but they are not reliable if you connect them to different desktops. Considering that this ability was introduced only recently I can accept this (for a while ...)

EDIT: here it is
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=199729

I'm sorry (in a way) to raise an old thead

on the other hand this is an old problem which afaik still has no solution and I can only agree 100% with jsamyth and re-ask the question:

What can you do with activities that you could not do with Desktops as found under KDE3 and Gnome and xFCE4, and etc?

To to back to another even older thread, I posted about this issue in this thread back in march...
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=19397&start=10#p55579

that was over 6 months ago. And I'm still as confused/annoyed today as I was then.

Mostly I've just put up with this not working since Fedora FCn? tore me away from a decent solid working desktop to this mess. Occasionally I have another look and trawl around forums.kde but alas it seems its still not fixed.

RGB said:

I do not agree that activities are a failed concept. It is a non working implementation, yes, but the concept is good

whilst I agree with the sentiment RGB, in practical reality if there is no working implemenation after prob. almost 1 year to my personal knowledge then I think we have to concede that 'Activities' are a failed concept.


I asked a question in the other thread and I will ask it again here:
My needs are probably quite simple. I just want to get a different background on a number of desktops and group my applications within those desktop/activities
Can anyone help me by explaining howto do this?

thank you very much if you can.

and if nobody can...
then I wholeheartedly second jsamyth's proposal to force a vote to get rid of the concept.

l.

londoh wrote:,
My needs are probably quite simple. I just want to get a different background on a number of desktops and group my applications within those desktop/activities
Can anyone help me by explaining howto do this?

It's quite simple actually.

1. Unlock the widgets if they aren't already.
2. Use the plasma-toolbox (or cashew to use the other term) to drop down the settings menu. Select "Configure plasma"
3. Click "Map activities to desktop" (the exact phrasing may be slightly different, I'm translating it from Swedish right now).

Now you should be able to set different wallpapers per desktop, although behind the scenes you're really setting the wallpaper to an activity. The same goes for plasmoids.

Applications, dolphin for example, behave exactly like they always have done. They don't care about activities - only desktops. That is, they will open up on whatever desktop is active when you launch it (or deiconify it for apps that are running in the systray).

If it's a failed concept I leave up to others to decide. All I can say is that for me it isn't. I use it extensively, even though I don't personally care about the "map to desktop" feature. I did think at first I would feel more at home with that, but now I prefer to use the "Activity switcher" plasmoid. The only drawback with that is that you lose the ability to have different wallpapers for different desktops, but for me that's not a drawback. To each his own and all that.

Kryten2X4B wrote:1. Unlock the widgets if they aren't already.
2. Use the plasma-toolbox (or cashew to use the other term) to drop down the settings menu. Select "Configure plasma"
3. Click "Map activities to desktop" (the exact phrasing may be slightly different, I'm translating it from Swedish right now).

Sorry, that does not cut it.

If you think you have the situation in hand after doing that Zoom out using the Cashew and count how many activities you have compared to how many desktops. You will find more activities than you think.

Then click some random activity and use the Zoom in button on its bottom edge. You have now just moved that activity to the desktop you were on when you zoomed out.

So now your "Accounting widgets" are on your "Programming desktop", and who knows where your Programming widgets went.

Unless or until they can absolutely lock an activity to a desktop it is a major FAIL.
Unless or until activities can not be created by seemingly random acts its a FAIL.

jsamyth wrote:,
If you think you have the situation in hand after doing that Zoom out using the Cashew and count how many activities you have compared to how many desktops. You will find more activities than you think.

I have done that. Several times. And I still, in the account where the map-feature is used, still have four desktops and four activities (well, 5 if you count the dashboard).

I'm not saying it's perfect. I'm saying it can be made to work.

jsamyth wrote:Then click some random activity and use the Zoom in button on its bottom edge. You have now just moved that activity to the desktop you were on when you zoomed out.

Have to try that again to make sure my memory isn't faulty, because I can't recognize that. It will have to wait until tomorrow though but I promise I will try and with a fresh account to boot. Still, even if what you say is 100 % true there's a, well workaround isn't quite the best term but it will do.

What I mean is that: for those that want Activity 1 to be equal to Desktop 1 (which, it seems, to be what most wants including you) the zooming interface isn't even necessary to use (and personally I hate it!). I know I didn't used it when I set up an account to be used that way, and from what I can tell it seems that it's the zooming interface that triggers the re-shuffling of activities. And yes, I can't see the point of using the ZUI if all you want is to set up the activity to desktop mapping.

In all but the very latest (not yet in releases, I think) version you will have desktops + 1 Activities. A bug in the code overlooked the fact that you already had one. This has been corrected.

As for how to do things, you need

http://userbase.kde.org/images.userbase ... y-link.gif
and
http://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/FAQ#How_ ... ivities.3F

Everything you need is there (be sure to follow the link on the second one). I choose to use only two desktops, but they do have different wallpapers. The Activity-Switcher is my preferred method of accessing them.

Hi Kryten2X4B / annew - thanks for replies

annew - ah well the bug explains the weird number at any rate!

I already found those howto gifs you mention and have tried working thru them without success.

but anyhow, I just tried again...

fyi:
I use FC11 on my work machine, by default this has KDE 4.3.1
its a well specced mc - e8600/8g/2g/2 x 1tb
I normally run with 8 desktops, suitably named as per my "activities"(ha rofl)
mail/db admin/code/webdev/business/browsers/winxp-qemu/svr shells
lets call them DT1 - DT8, a number of apps running in each DT

Here's what I did:...
Click the cashew > zoom out
click config plasma
check "different activity for each desktop"
work thru the activities and put a diff wallpaper on each one
click the zoom button on first one (DT1) - expecting to goto normal zoom on desktop/activity DT1 - only I havent come up on DT1 - its DT3?

anyway...
right clk on desktop > add panel > set position and autohide
right clk on panel > add widget > select activity bar widget > click apply

OK so I now got:
a desktop pager and task manager on the usual bottom panel. The pager shows DT1 - DT8
a new panel at top of screen with 9 buttons all marked 'Desktop'

when I first set the activity bar, clicking on it switched thru the activites OK, But then after a minute or too it has stopped, and clicking now does nothing. Doesnt switch activities or desktops. zilch.

Clicking the desktop pager does still switch thru desktops. - which have now changed appearance some (I guess to activities?)
But they do have different wallpapers!
HOWEVER
most of those no longer have the cashew (top right)
most of them now DONT have my normal desktop folder view (just DT3 for some reason)
after another minute or two, 3 or 4 screens now have the wallpaper offset - kinda looks like the activities have slipped across screens (both horiz and vert) and you can see the + zoom tools icons etc, (wallpapers size = monitor res, but setting a colour background shows same effect/error)


If I right click on an activity/desktop > select 'Desktop Settings'
I get a dialog with title Desktop Settings - Plasma Workspave
'Appearance' and 'Desktop Activity'
I select Type > Folder View > then click apply
This blanks the desktop background. Its just whited out
If I then reverse the process the whole bunch of activities shift around, but are still not aligned to screen - I can see a quarter of 4 different activity/desktops


oh dear - while this been going on I now lost the cashew altogether.
am gonna post this first and then restart x to see what ahppens
sorry its a bit rambling

will take screenshots. do you want screenshots?
copies of config files?
anything ...? tea? coffee? money?
please somebody make it work

btw - whats the 'dashboard'

tnx

l.

Hey Landoh:

Do you have dual monitors by chance?

Activities explode out of control if you have dual monitors.
It gets totally crazy.

(btw - nvidia graphics card)
ok I'm back:
activity switcher doesnt work and desktop/activity things have slipped again

jsamyth wrote:Presently Activities and Desktops are a hopeless mess.

What can you do with activities that you could not do with Desktops as found under KDE3 and Gnome and xFCE4, and etc?

The concept of activities is a Totally Failed concept. It should be scrapped and just allow us to start the Calendar or calculator or other utility on each desktop, and apply a wallpaper to each as was done in the past.

Can't we just vote a vote to force a way to de-activate activities all together?

well that wasted another 2 hrs of my life
if after +/- 1 year nobody can make it work == its broke

Notwithstanding all that, if anyone can give reasoned answer to jsamyth's question I'll be patient...
What can you do with activities that you could not do with Desktops as found under KDE3 and Gnome and xFCE4, and etc?

even assuming the feature worked, what is the benefit?

If there is no sensible answer, pls show me where to vote it off

l.

jsamyth wrote:Hey Landoh:

Do you have dual monitors by chance?

Activities explode out of control if you have dual monitors.
It gets totally crazy.

Hi
no I dont, prob should have but office space is very tight

anyway, even after my last disaster I just tried this again - thought maybe its just my stoopid or something...
so I tried a diff route - I deleted all my desktops except 1, and then added a few activities, diff wallpapers and folder widget views and stuff. Then added a panel and an activity switcher...

and it works OK!!! yayyyyy - its quite cool really, I can even switch activities no problem and it all seems stable - well at least after 5 mins or so its still seems OK.
clk actv1 - clk actv2 -clk clk clk all good no probs.

ah... but then it seems there is this one HUGE problem:
ALL the open apps show in ALL the activities.
And I dont see any way to turn em off - task manager has checks in 'Only show tasks from current desktop' and '... current screen'

so (pls forgive my abbreviated vernacular) wtf was the point of all that?

A quick google seems to confirm this is expected behaviour: so in fact activities dont even do what desktops did. I can add all these activites and stick a Bouncy BbalL or a PieChart applet or (OMG wait for it) a Weather Station applet on em!!!!!!

but I cant group my apps in em? can this be true?

I despair at this point.

shame bill gates doesnt code any more - surely bill would've saved us from such folly

Well, you seem to come more along with how it works. But obviously you missed the whole point where it is now possible to link desktops to activities

Note though, it is not fully stable, as it is still undergoing development (integration between KWin and Plasma). But with 4.3 it is at least possbible to link them both.

That means different apps, different desktops with different applets and so on.

A quick search here on the forum will show you relevant entries on how to configure it.

londoh wrote:ah... but then it seems there is this one HUGE problem:
ALL the open apps show in ALL the activities.

Exactly.
Activities are useless for segregating Actual working applications.

All they do is act as a switcher for wall paper and widgets.

If it were possible AND desirable to do any real work in widgets then you could
get by with a single desktop and many activities.

Even it that worked it would be an undesirable duplication of multiple desktops

So the only rational way to do this is to:

Delete all activities (except one)
Create the number of desktops you actually want with the pager.
Then click the cashew, select one activity per desktop, and configure the same number
of activities as you have desktops.

Then, finally, go to each desktop with the PAGER.
Click the cashew, zoom out, then Zoom in using the magnifier attached to the Activity you want on that desktop.

Then use the Pager to configure the next desktop.

When done lock the Widgets and pray.

Never use the activity switcher. All it switches is activities. Not your running programs.

I really wish the KDE team would just junk this whole concept. But if they could just force a pop-up anytime an activity is about to be created they could control a lot of the breeding like rabbits problem with desktops. They would also find the bugs quicker.

As for other peoples assertion this is finally usable, I would point out this is 4.3.3 or there abouts. It is long past time to have this work or
trash it and start over. Just let us put wallpaper on the desktop directly. To hell with the widgets, I know how to use applications. Just let me weld a wallpaper to a desktop and get on with developing the things KDE needs.