RFC: app open only once instead of instances in the different activities

[Anton Kreuzkamp]

On Thursday 27 October 2011 17:52:24 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Thursday, October 27, 2011 17:11:34 Fania Bremmer wrote:
> > Usecase: I want to check my private mails any time I want, not related
> > to my current activity. Currenlty I need to create a "general" activity
> > with that sort of apps in it, like also a chat program... I need to
> > switch to this activity to be able to chat, even if I am using that chat
> > maybe for different projects, contacts, activities.
> 
> we face the same issue in Plasma Desktop, and the solution currently
> implemented is to allow the user to associate an app/window with all
> activities.
> 
> perhaps this is another use case for the "C" in SLC with a "Connect to all
> activities" option?
> 
> it will, i think, be very hard to tell which apps we can launch safely on
> all versus just the current activitiy. we'd have to track each application,
> make a top-down decision and it would often seem random to the user. i'd
> suggest consistency over intelligence in this case due to that.
What about: simply all applications that used to minimize themself into the 
system tray. These are the apps that need to be accessible from everywhere 
(think of kontact, kopete, amarok,...). So it would simply mean: if the app is 
opened from the systemtray it gets opened on the current activity, regardless 
on which it was before. This would also avoid confusion as the difference in 
the functionalities is obvious.
About the question of putting "ubiqitous" applications in the systemtray: I 
like the idea to have them seperated from the "normal" activity-related apps. 
*I* think from a task oriented point of view they rather qualify as tools than 
as full applications.

> things get even harder if / when apps like kontact touch become activity
> aware. imagine having the ability to only show emails / email accounts
> related to the given activity. if the application can switch naturally,
> then we'd be better off showing that same app on multiple activities when
> launched; e.g. -> launching such an app again on a second activity would
> actually just associate the window with that activity. though to avoid user
> confusion, this would also mean that "closing" the app would mean not
> actually closing it but dissassociating it from that activity (so it would
> "keep running" in the other activities)
> 
> in the specific case of chat, this is really a case where the feature should
> not be an ap at all but a service that you can start and stop and which
> integrates with the shell itself. this is the approach the kde telepathy
> project is taking and i think it has real merit as it resolves these issues
> fairly cleanly.

Cheers, Anton