Re: Discussion for Virtual Desktops and Activities future

[Ivan Čukić]

Just read the phab discussion. If I misunderstood the situation, please correct me.  Wondering where the original discussion happened where 'we' decided to merge two orthogonal concepts into one. Can you point me to the relevant thread on plasma-devel? If this is about providing a unified implementation in kwin for both VDs and activities, I'm fine with that. If not, then continue reading.  VDs are for managing windows - a solution for the 'I don't have a screen large enough for all these windows'. Activities are for managing work - a solution to the 'I don't want documents/files/etc. from separate projects to get jumbled up together'. Previously, we had problems when we tried to equate activities with any specific thing. As in, 'an activity is a group of Plasma widgets'. The same will happen if the activity becomes 'a group of windows'. This has been discussed quite a few times before.  Has anyone collected the use-cases of activities before coming up with this idea? Cheers,  Ivan  Sent via the BlackBerry Hub for Android From: mvourla...@gmail.com Sent: 3 July 2018 5:36 pm To: plasma-devel@kde.org Reply to: plasma-devel@kde.org Subject: Discussion for Virtual Desktops and Activities future A discussion started by me at: https://phabricator.kde.org/D13745 about concerns related to future Activities / Virtual Desktops merge (I will call it MERGE in the future). As proposed the discussion can be moved here. In my opinion having a concrete draft how things are going to work from a user point view it might bring design issues that can be solved earlier than later. My opinion in the matter can be found at: https://psifidotos.blogspot.com/2012/03/activities-and-workareas-draft.html 1. I think that the previous draft can be used in order to identify any users workflow breakage from MERGE. 2. A new draft describing MERGE from a user point of view should be created in order for everyone (plama team and VDG) to understand what they are trying to create. By reading comments I identified a internal decision in order for MERGE to be based more in Activites infrastructure  for Plasma product and to VDs infrastructure for KWin product. I would propose to forget the technical approach and focus more on the user point of view. This could help avoid the VDs/Activities debate that started in Plasma 4/5 era and it is still present at a smaller degree. I will start with one concern based on the comments I read even though it would be better for everyone to describe first what is expecting from the MERGE. Concern [A] If MERGE creates a new Activity each time the user needs more space for its windows, doesnt that break totally the VDs users workflow? Example: I am working on my current actitivity and I am writing a note in a plasma widget. I am creating a new Activity, should that Activity look the same as the previous one and if I change the note in the first should it look the same and in the second? (at this example a current VDs user would answer should be in sync and always the same, a current Activity user would answer it doesnt matter, it is unrelated)