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This is a slightly complex idea, so bare with me a moment.

I suggest that an activity bar in a panel at the top be added to the default set-up, making this more accessible to the user (first and foremost). No, wait! There's more.

The first activity created would be a, "read-only" activity called, "Clean slate" (or similar). This activity would be the first activated when you log-in, and would just be a plain-vanilla desktop with no applications open (not sure how to incorporate widgets yet, but bare with me). When you open an application, a single, new activity is made, called, "Latest activity", which appears in the activity bar. When a user clicks on the, "Clean Slate" activity, KDE closes all applications launched since log-in and returns to the bog-standard desktop set-up. Clicking on the, "Latest activity" activity will restore all those applications and windows, remembering certain stuff like their on-screen geometry, open documents(?), folders(?), E-mails(?), web-sites(?) etc. From the cashew, the user would have the option to, "Save activity" and give it a name (such as, "Home" or, "Work" etc.). This would keep that activity in the activity bar permanently and create an option in the Cashew to, "Remove activity", which would delete it from the bar.

So on log-in, the user would then have, "Clean slate" and, "Work" (or whatever they called the new activity). They can click on the, "Work" activity to open all their applications and their open files etc. as they were saved before. Clicking on "Clean slate" would close those applications and return to a standard desktop. Regardless of which activity they have opened, opening new applications or closing application windows would then create another new activity: "Latest activity". This can then also be saved under a different name, like, "Home". It could also be saved across log-outs, which provides another benefit: system updates, user needs to restart, they restart and click, "Latest activity" to carry on where they set off.


I think this would be a much more natural interaction with activities and provide much more obvious benefits to the users. So, what do you think? Discuss!

This sounds like GnomeShell to me...

What? Gnome Shell completely overdoes virtual desktops. This doesn't reference virtual desktops at all - they're completely disconnected from these activities.

Madman wrote:What? Gnome Shell completely overdoes virtual desktops. This doesn't reference virtual desktops at all - they're completely disconnected from these activities.

I know but it seems similar...
Never mind. I just tried to imagine how this would work and one of Gnome Shell ideas came to mind (adding virtual desktops/activities on demand; it has both merged in one thing...)
nvm, just trying to create a mental picture.

Nah. They've just muddled a few words together.

Well, we have something similar in mind but without auto-spawning(creating) the activities.

And the activity bar is not going to cut it as a main UI for them.

Keep the ideas coming - we could use them for Tokamak4!

You've got me interested. Go on - what is actually planned?

Activities should become more than just groups of widgets. Nothing is yet decided UI-wise, but the /ideas/ are here - just check Chani's blog - for example http://chani.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/t ... ivities/...

There is no definitive document about the features, but I think you'll get some ideas from the above link.

You could also check (I'm currently working on the backend stuff that will be used for activities) http://ivan.fomentgroup.org/blog/2010/0 ... ctivities/

Aah, very interesting. Yeah, a lot of this idea is basically that stuff.

Though, I still like the idea of automatically creating a, "Latest" activity that can then be easily saved under a different name.

It seems to me that this is another way of handling (login) sessions - the set of applications launched on login. Currently there are a couple of options for sessions which match fairly close your activities: start with blank session (your "clean slate" activity), start with previous session ("latest activity") or start with saved session. This idea could be implemented by bringing sessions into the forefront of the UI and allowing a user to initialize different sessions after they've already logged in (as well as attaching activities to sessions, perhaps).

@airdrik New session handling is one of the aspects of the planned activities, yes.

@Madman The problem with the "Latest" activity is the following - I am working in my activity, for example "Work". When do I get out of that one and enter the "Latest" activity which needs naming? (I hope I'm understandable)

ivan wrote:@Madman The problem with the "Latest" activity is the following - I am working in my activity, for example "Work". When do I get out of that one and enter the "Latest" activity which needs naming? (I hope I'm understandable)

Don't worry, you're understandable
Ideally, if you create a new window/open a new application/etc. It would switch to the, "Latest" activity. The, "Work" activity would let you revert back to the saved state.

So, that would mean manually saving new versions of activities?

From my point of view, an activity is something that needs to evolve constantly, and not to be a fixed point back in time. (not that having snapshots is a bad idea, just that I don't think it should be the main paradigm)

When you work on a project (activity) you open/close different programs/files/... all the time. It is more common to continue working where you stopped than always starting from the same point.

That is actually a very good point, but similarly, when you're at home for example, you're likely to use all the same or similar applications every time: instant messaging, music player, E-mail client, maybe a news reader and a web browser.

I do suppose your explanation makes more sense, though.

Yes, and the applications list is remembered on switching the activity - so when you switch back, you'll have all the apps you had running before.

Do you start a group of apps you mentioned and then quit them so that you'd need them restarted when entering the activity?

The current session management allows for the following options:
- saving on exit
- using manually saved session
- using blank session

We could probably provide the same thing.