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Maybe I just couldn't find it or it's because my Kwin is not working properly, but it would be cool if one could simply psuh the widgets on the desktop to the background, i.e. make the background image completely visible. Obviously, you later want to be able to restore your widgets in the exact same place and same configuration...

Why would you want to do this, and what is the advantage over just having a separate activity with no widgets on it?

Have you considered just putting your widgets on the plasma dashboard? Be sure to select "Show an independent widget set" in the Workspace section of system settings.

Moult: didn't know that option. I will test it today.

TheBlackCat: sorry, I'm still learning, so how do I "create" a separate activity? The reason why I submitted this idea was: I like a clean desktop. Widgets are nice and cool, but sometimes I just want to have a clean, nice desktop with only my background image. Plus: if you are using a feature like changing background images, it would be nice to have the possibility of a clean view whenever it changes...

That depends, what version of KDE are you using?

TheBlackCat wrote:That depends, what version of KDE are you using?

KDE 4.5.1

ichbinder, did you test out the plasma dashboard?

To create a new activity, right click on the desktop and click Activities (I think, not on KDE right now). Alternatively you can use the meta(windowskey)-q shortcut. That allows you to switch between activities, start and stop them. Please watch this for more information:
http://chani.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/a ... es-in-4-5/

Moult wrote:ichbinder, did you test out the plasma dashboard?

I just did. Am I correct that the dashboard is just another surface specifically for showing widgets? So I would have the dashboard and no widgets on my desktop to see the image, right? Or am I missing some option? Because, I would still prefer to have the widgets on my desktop as default. But I want to be able to have a look at the clear background without the widgets... Am I missing something?

Moult wrote:
To create a new activity, right click on the desktop and click Activities (I think, not on KDE right now). Alternatively you can use the meta(windowskey)-q shortcut. That allows you to switch between activities, start and stop them. Please watch this for more information:
http://chani.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/a ... es-in-4-5/

Thanks for the explanation. Also read a short introduction about activities. Nice idea and it seems like it's close to what I want, but: as I described, I use a random background image and when I create a new activity, this will be another image than in my original desktop environment... so, for example: I have holiday pictures as desktop backgrounds, change every hour. It might happen that there is a cool image that I want to have a better look at for a second. Changing to another activity gives me a different background...

So, in my opinion, the feature I described is not useless or re-produceable by other widgets/features. What are your opinions?

It is a valid idea, but I don't think it is a good one. It adds yet another configuration and interface complexity for only a minor cosmetic improvement. The wallpaper isn't intended as a picture viewer, we have gwenview and digikam for that.

TheBlackCat wrote:It is a valid idea, but I don't think it is a good one. It adds yet another configuration and interface complexity for only a minor cosmetic improvement. The wallpaper isn't intended as a picture viewer, we have gwenview and digikam for that.

True. It's a minor cosmetic improvement. But it's just an added abstraction level, where widgets are not "glued" to the desktop but one level above it. In my opinion, it's not only a cosmetic improvement but also sticks to the idea of independent objects in your environment.

Software-wise widgets would still be "glued" to the desktop. If they weren't we wouldn't be able to have transparency in widgets without composting. So it would add complexity to the code, perhaps a lot, with no other benefit besides your specific situation.

I don't think it is worth it. If you really want something like this, I think it would be much simpler to just fork the slideshow wallpaper and make a version that shows the same wallpaper on every activity with a slideshow on it. I think this would be possible with a properly-designed data engine.

Didn't know the background details. Reading your first paragraph, it sounds like it's really not worth the effort.

But your idea in the second one sounds pretty nice... Maybe the original idea should be modified to this direction...
As this might be more activities-related, should I create a new one or modify this one? Or is this even necessary?

I'd create a new one. This is still a valid idea.