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Remain on the same virtual desktop when switching activities

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moltonel
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As submited in bug 300919.

Currently, switching to a different activity brings you back to the last virtual desktop that was current in that activity. This is likely not the same virtual desktop as the current one, so it can be confusing because
  • You might not remember which virtual desktop you were on when last on that activity, making the virtual desktop you'll switch to "unpredictable".
  • Depending on your mental model of how activities are related spacially and semantically (I see virtual desktops as being beside each other, and activities as being on top of each other; my virtual desktops are arranged with a common logic), having a "switch activity" action that also does "switch virtual desktop" can be an extra undesired step.

To be comprehensive, I'll note that
  • The behaviour I'm describing is the original behaviour. So there are proponent of both behaviour, and a preference setting would be needed.
  • There is also a wish to have different number of virtual desktops per activty. In that case, we'd need an alorythm similar to image scaling to determine which virtual desktop is "the same"

What do you think ?
airdrik
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Well, if anything this should be an option, since I know it used to work that way and was just recently changed after some discussion that it didn't make sense under the current model - desktops belong to activities and are independent of the desktops on other activities (I don't know if it has been implemented but potentially each activity could have a different number/arrangement of desktops); so this should only be an option if all of your activities have the same number/arrangement of desktops otherwise it just doesn't make sense (and even then it seems like you are using activities as a second dimension for your desktops instead of as a way to separate the things you do with your computer, and you might as well just use MxN desktops in a single activity instead).

Alternatively to help solve the issue with returning to an unpredictable desktop when you switch activities would be an option that you always return to the default (first) desktop when switching activities.


airdrik, proud to be a member of KDE forums since 2008-Dec.
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david_edmundson
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I can't understand how this could be useful.

I'm doing something on Activity1 (my working activity) I switch to Activity (say my casual browsing activity, and use something on a different virtual desktop) I then go back to Activity1 to work, and I'm not in the same place. Your argument is that I may have forgotten which desktop I was on in the activtity, but the point is that I wouldn't have to it goes back to where I were- in your method I'd have to remember where everything was in every activity.

Could you explain a possible scenario where this would be useful.

The whole point of activities is to keep workflows separate, this idea goes completely against it.
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AstroFloyd
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I have the opposite taste :)

I'm currently still on KDE 4.7 (wanting to skip 4.8, waiting for 4.9 to become stable in Gentoo) and whenever I change virtual desktops in my current activity they are also changed in other activities 'behind the screens'. Very confusing when you get back to those activities. In my taste, activities should be more independent than they are now; it should e.g. be possible to have different numbers or arrangements of virtual desktops in different activities. Since this is just my opinion, and clearly different people have different opinions, it sounds like a good idea to make all this optional. (As I mentioned, I haven't tried KDE 4.8 or 4.9 yet - perhaps this is already implemented.)


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