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Ok I posted this elsewhere, but I REALLY want this feature.

Right now the desktop is complex, usually consisting of 4 virtual desktops. This is rarely utilized by the average user. Also this scheme can hog memory especially if you use composting and other 3d features.

So my proposal is a bit more of a tabs system. you start up with one desktop, but you can click the pager to pull up another. If you leave that desktop without a window up it automatically closes. Moreover, you can right-click an icon in pull up apps in a new desktop, or an existing one. this would allow someone to have as many desktops as they want, but not use up more resources than they have to.

I hope that this will be implemented, and others who are wiser than me help me refine the idea.

Have you tried desktop "activities" ?

What I think Technobabble is talking about is a way to quickly add and remove desktops depending on how many you need at the time. I think "tabs" is the wrong word for it.

This is probably not exactly what Technobabble is refering to, but "tabs" and/or "tags are used by many tiling window manager (e.g. Awesome, PekWM, DWM, Ion, StumpWM etc.).

The difference between "tabs" or more exactly "tags" (which is technically not the same thing) compared to virtual desktops is that a window can have more then one "tag" applied to it. This means that you can have e.g. konqueror present on "tag 1" and "tag 3", have kopete present on all tags and kate present on "tag 1" and "tag 2".

So far I'm quite happy with my 6 virtual desktops and 4 activities ...but I'm willing to see what could evolve from this

Technobabble wrote:virtual desktops [are] rarely utilized by the average user.

Care to provide some proof of that?

Technobabble wrote:Also this scheme can hog memory especially if you use composting and other 3d features.

No, virtual desktops does not use more memory than a single desktop. It works by enabling/disabling windows depending on which virtual desktop is shown, but it's always the same "physical" desktop that is rendered.

Technobabble wrote:So my proposal is a bit more of a tabs system. you start up with one desktop, but you can click the pager to pull up another. If you leave that desktop without a window up it automatically closes. Moreover, you can right-click an icon in pull up apps in a new desktop, or an existing one. this would allow someone to have as many desktops as they want, but not use up more resources than they have to.

That would completely break my workflow, as I always keep the same programs in the same VD. For example, I always have kmail running on desktop 3 (in a 3x3 grid). Having it move around depending on what other applications are running would be extremely annoying.