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The idea here is the creation of a type of launcher/icon that can open a "group" of programs and seamlessly place them in tabbed window groups.

When a user creates one of these launchers, they can specify several applications to be run, or drag and drop other shortcuts into the launcher. When the user clicks the group launcher, it will open all the applications at once and (dbus?) kwin to tab them all together.


The launcher itself might be an XML file or simple data file containing information on applications it would launch. When opened an actual launcher application would just read the file and run the commands necessary to get everything running. When something is dragged-and-dropped onto the icon that launcher app might recognize that there was input and simply edit the file.

In order to know what windows to group, the launcher app might insert some temporary rules into kwin telling it to group "normal windows" belonging to X Y and Z until it has detected all applications have been launched.

I think the sessions could be a better aproach.

I believe there are movements in this direction with some of the proposed (under development?) changes to Activities and session management - each activity will also come with a set of applications that launch when it is started.

Granted, that isn't a clump that you can just click once and all of the applications are started, but it is similar in that you switch to the activity (via button or shortcut, however that will operate when those changes are in place) and all of the applications are started.

The only problems with sessions is that they're less intuitive and slightly arcane. Also, sessions are more for starting up and less about mid-session.

If I want to launch a common set of windows for web development (Firefox, Konquerer and KDevelop) having an icon t just click on and launch all 3 makes it fast. I could also have a group for graphic-design (Gimp, Inkscape, Kolourpaint) that could also be one click. Right now my taskbar has a dozen launchers, I could probably get it down to 4 since I always use the same programs together.

Think of it like the quick-launch plasmoid, only the option to launch its contents at once. As a thought, it could actually be a plasmoid, though it wouldn't be available in kickoff the file-browser, or a folderview desktop.

Might I suggest that you cross it over with a more standard quick launch as well? You could have, say, 3 groups that you set, Office, Graphic, and Web Development. These would each have their own icon and display 3 icons in the panel. Clicking the icon would open the group, hovering over the icon for x number of seconds would "slide out" the individual programs in that group, just in case you want to just quickly remove the red eye out of a photo with Gimp without opening Inkscape and Kolourpaint at the same time.

We are mainly suggesting that in future versions of KDE (assuming I interpreted the plans correctly), this functionality will be available through the merged activities+sessions (in a cleaner interface than what is currently available): each activity will come with its own session (set of applications that launch with it, disappear with it when you switch to a different activity or close with it when you close the activity) in addition to plasmoids as it now does.
So instead of clicking a button to launch a set of applications, you switch to the appropriate activity (which may well have a button in the panel associated with it) which brings up the applications you want. There will also be a convenient interface for saving activities with the applications that you want launched with that activity.

Of course, that's a version or two of KDE in the future. Making a plasmoid to launch a set of applications should be simple enough to do now.

This is a great idea.

It would be nice if the group window size was remembered from the previous group/clump opening rather than on the size of any one of the clumps members. This might be hard to implement. (I'm not a developer, so who knows?)

airdrik wrote:We are mainly suggesting that in future versions of KDE (assuming I interpreted the plans correctly), this functionality will be available through the merged activities+sessions (in a cleaner interface than what is currently available): each activity will come with its own session (set of applications that launch with it, disappear with it when you switch to a different activity or close with it when you close the activity) in addition to plasmoids as it now does.
So instead of clicking a button to launch a set of applications, you switch to the appropriate activity (which may well have a button in the panel associated with it) which brings up the applications you want. There will also be a convenient interface for saving activities with the applications that you want launched with that activity.

Of course, that's a version or two of KDE in the future. Making a plasmoid to launch a set of applications should be simple enough to do now.

I had to read over twice just to comprehend what you said.

The idea of Clumps is just a simple quickly-open-a-few-programs solution, a fast/cleaner way to open related programs. Give users a bucket, let them add shortcuts, and they can shotgun-spray the contents whenever they want to; regardless of the activity they happen to be using.

I can understand why people might like activities for this, but it's a more complex solution than necessary. I personally have one activity I use, it works for everything I do - I don't see why people need to configure several activities just for a faster, cleaner launching method.

I could see activities and clumps/groups complementing eachother, but they are two very different solutions for two somewhat different problems.