7

The Task Manager is used for viewing which and how many windows are opened and to do actions on them (raising, minimizing, closing...). The Pager is used for switching desktops. It is also used to see which applications are on which desktop, to move them between desktops and to raise/activate them. But these functions are hindered by the fact that some windows are obscured by other windows and some are very small.
The Task Manager could easily do these functions without the hindrance.

Say you've got 4 desktops. I suggest the Task Manager be separated into 4 divisions. Each division representing a desktop. Each division would show the windows (the same way it currently does - the icon and the name or just the icon) that are on that desktop. When dragging an item from one division to another, the window the item represents would also move to the desktop that the division represents.

Clicking on an empty space in the division would switch to that desktop.

The divisions would be equally sized under normal conditions. When a division starts running out of space (when there's a lot of windows on a desktop), it would increase in size and others would decrease if possible (if they're not full themselves).

This could be an option of the Task Manager or (probably better) an entirely new plasmoid.



The separators between divisions should be clearly visible. Perhaps the desktop name could be displayed above the tasks like this:



The desktop name could be useful for switching to that desktop, especially if there is no empty space in the division. But it's not necessary, as activating a window on another desktop also switches to that desktop.

Looks like a very interesting idea - possibly one that would get me to use several desktops/activities for the first time. Kudos!

If only task manager plasmoid (or Icon only task manager) could show apps from specified desktop, it would be achievable. You would have to create several panels and put task manager on each of these. Each task manager would show apps for different desktop.

Of course you will be unable to click on empty space to switch desktops, desktop name could not be put on top of panel and this setting is fixed, while number of virtual desktops can be changed on run time. But perhaps adding this one option would be much easier for developers, so it may work as temporary solution.

That's definitely a good idea.
You can test whether the idea would work for you by using the "tint2" -panel from openbox. There you can get exactly this functionality. That's why I was searching the web whether it would be possible with the kde-panel.

A simple solution is simply to add to the existing task manager an option about which desktop's windows to show.
Then put 4 widgets in the same panel and done.
This way we keep the flexibility of KDE and do not add some new widgets.

PS: it is a nice idea I never thought of