[Bug 296371] RFC: Make connecting to / disconnecting from current Activity via SLC easier

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=296371

--- Comment #2 from Thomas Pfeiffer <colomar at autistici.org> ---
(In reply to comment #1)
> how long is too long? or rather, how short is quick enough?

It's more about relative than absolute length. Connecting to the current
activity is one of the most important usecases of SLC, since it relates to
_the_ central concept of Plasma Active / Contour. It's part of the typical
workflow of collecting stuff in an Activity. It's certainly not the coolest or
most innovative way to use SLC, but that does not make it any less important or
common.
Therefore if it takes 50% more actions to complete than other, less common
actions, something's not right.

> "Move the "Current Activity" menu entry to the top level"
> 
> this implies that the point of "connect" is really "connect to activity",
> which is incorrect conceptually (despite the current implementation having
> only one implemented target: activities)

Why does it imply that? It only implies "Connect to...", and I don't see what's
wrong with that. You can still have 
"Connect to...
 - Current Activity
 - Other Activities
 - My Facebook Profile
 - This Contact
 - ... "

But even if we find that "Connect to" is still to narrow, it's only a matter of
labeling, not of the menu hierarchy itself. And the current "Activities"
implies "Connect to" as well.

> "because connecting to / disconnecting from the current activity is much
> more common than connecting to other activities."
> 
> that is not enough. what is the relative value of connecting to other
> activities? what about when there are other items in "connect" besides
> "activity"? what happens to the thought process when a choice about activity
> is presented before the person expresses that they wish to act on an
> activity?

Look at the "file" menu any given application. Chances are high that it
contains "Save" as well as "Save as..." entries. Of course "Save as..." would
theoretically suffice because the user could still save with the same name. But
"Save" (which implies "Save to the file you opened") is a convenient shortcut
because it's much more common to save to the file you opened than to another
one. The fact that there are two different entries does not imply that the
purpose of the whole File menu is to save, though. It does, in fact, not imply
anything. The only thing it does is provide a convenient shortcut to a common
action.

> this is probably rather harder to grasp than it should be because connect
> only has one entry right now (to activity).

I don't think this has anything to do with this.

A valid concern would be that the "Connect" menu might get too long. If we have
enough entries in there that this would be an issue, we can still think about
maybe using something like a split button to save vertical space.

But offering a shortcut to the most common item on a submenu on the main level
is actually common practice.

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