https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=438375

--- Comment #3 from stellarpo...@googlemail.com ---
This quite possibly belongs elsewhere under a different bug, but including here
for reference as part of the same user-story, and as KDE is a full suite of
applications and not just a single one.

This setting has improved the "being teleported into another room" aspect. For
me the overall UX when launching an application or opening a new file is still
a bit jarring. I have spent many years on Cinnamon where a number of these
things have, for what I expect to see happen, "just worked", so now I am having
to think about them in terms of what I would expect.

The obvious example here is in Dolphin, but it probably applies to other
locations - in general, if I am on a workspace where I have an existing
application open, then opening in a new tab is preferable. However if I am on a
different workspace without an instance of this application, I want to open a
new window on that workspace.

An easy example of when this behaviour has been most annoying for me is opening
text files. If I have a text editor open, such as Kate, I don't want a new
window for every single file I open from my file manager - in this instance, a
new tab is suitable. It would rapidly become unmanagable having multiple Kate
widows open and take focus when I am browsing through Dolphin.  And if I don't,
 I don't want to zoom to another workspace and open it there, nor do I want an
existing window of Kate's to zoom to this workspace, I want a new instance to
be opened. I usually group my work by workspace, so, for an application like
that where multiple windows are supported, if I open a file or application in a
workspace I expect it to be presented to me in that workspace. I don't want to
be teleported into the bathroom because I am picking up and sorting through
some towels, sponges and a rubber dusk; but nor do I want a bathful of water to
be teleported into the living room and thrown on me! I want to leave my bath
filling up with water in that room whilst I sort out something that is similar
on the surface but in terms of my tasks and workflow, semantically an unrelated
task, in the living room. 

Again this is something that historically has just worked for me in
Cinnamon/nemo/xed, so I haven't had to think about what logic is being applied
explicitly before, the behaviour for me is just what is most expected from the
traditional desktop metaphor. If I hit the start menu and select my text
editor, I get a new window - the behaviour is different than if I double-click
a file in nemo, and this makes sense to me. If I launch an application where a
new window in a different workspace isn't possible, then the window gets
activated and I an pinged to that workspace or the application comes up in my
window list applet in my panel. Opening a song in a media player would be an
example where this would make sense (even if this shouldn't focus the window
and would probably work in the background) - something like Amarok or
Clementine etc., where there is probably a QSingleApplication instance. Or
perhaps opening a file in an IDE where there is already an instance open. An
application where a new instance would be either overkill or physically can't
happen.

I presume a certain amount of this is more of a Dolphin setting than for Plasma
- but I am not sure. I have used Dolphin on my Mint installation and also used
Kate as my text editor, and I don't remember seeing behaviour like I am seeing
now on a fully-KDE desktop. Cinnamon (or something along the chain, such as a
desktop launcher) somehow seems to make a judgement on whether it should open a
new window in the current workspace or raise the file or application in an
existing one. Maybe something is different on my system because it's a bit of a
surprise if this hasn't seriously annoyed a lot of other people when simply
clicking on a text file in Dolphin and trying to open this in Kate. I'd hazard
a guess at least a third of users would want the file to open in a new instance
of Kate in the current workspace, so if this isn't massively affecting lots of
users maybe I am missing something here.

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