[kde-linux] Re: Individual Desktop Settings

[Duncan]

Alex Schuster posted on Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:22:48 +0200 as excerpted:

> Duncan writes:
> 
>> Wolfgang Mueller posted on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:51:41 +0200 as
>> excerpted:

>> > Is it possible to make a different [wallpaper] choice for each
>> > virtual desktop, and if so, how is that done?
>> 
>> In kcontrol

>> That will give you a different activity for each virtual desktop,
>> locking> the two concepts, activities and virtual desktops, together.
> 
> That was changed somewhere around KDE 4.5.x. Before, Plasmoids normally
> were on all desktops, but you could make KDE create a different activity
> for each desktop with this checkbox. Now, this checkbox makes each
> activity have multiple desktops. I have six desktops, but only a single
> activity (yet).

Ahh!  Thanks!

You can tell I know where that option is but don't normally toggle it to 
see exactly what it does, as it's already set as I want it, here.

> Not sure yet what to make about this ativity stuff. I like the idea, but
> I don't use it at all. Yet. Maybe later, it does not seem ready yet to
> me. For example, I just created a 2nd activity,

Watch out!  While activities seem to be /reasonably/ stable if left alone, 
screw with them too much and you'll wish you didn't!  I found that out the 
hard way.  See below...

Maybe they'll get the bugs associated with that fixed at some point.  I 
hope so.

> and tried the different
> layouts. The first thing that I think is misleading is that I first did
> not see how to change the layout / the type of activity. The layout is
> set by desktop menu -> settings for X, if your current layout is X.
> Like, I had it set to 'workspace', and wanted to change it to 'search
> and execute' (or something like that in English locale). So I have to
> open the 'workspace' settings, and change the layout to 'search and
> execute'. But the latter just is not a setting for workspace, but a
> layout of my activity. Uhm, this sounds strange, I hope you understand
> what I mean, I probably wouldn't.

Very interesting point.   I guess that's plasma/kde4's version of the 
infamous "push the 'start button' to shutdown!" problem! =:^P

Probably much like the more famous counterpart, things sort of "evolved", 
I guess.  I believe in early kde4 that dialog was originally simply called 
desktop settings, then the plasma folks decided to rename it dynamically 
to match the activity name, and the activity name came to default to the 
activity layout type.  So rather by accident, one now clicks <layout-type> 
settings, not just to change settings for that layout-type, but also to 
change to a different layout type!

But you're the first person I've seen to actually point it out.  Good job 
spotting that! Sounds like something that should be bug-filed. =:^/

> BTW, I set the background image to weather, and I think now I should
> have a dynamic wallpaper depending on the current weather, but this does
> not work, I still have my default background.

Note that "advanced" gives you the ability to choose the wallpaper linked 
to each type of weather, so you can see what it /should/ do.  And you have 
to choose a location, of course...

But between not updating (at least immediately), and the simple beauty of 
the wallpapers themselves, I don't use the weather wallpaper, just switch 
to one of the individual wallpapers that go with it, from time to time.

Meanwhile, the globe wallpaper is simply astounding.  You'll need 
reasonable graphics for it, and here, it's a separate package, but...

Just *WOW*!

(I only recently discovered the separate package for it, and had installed 
it, but only just now actually tried it!)

> Anyway. I notice that with my newly created activity, I see some of my
> applications, but not others. That is, some applications (Chromium,
> Amarok, Konsole) are sticky on all activities, others (like Kontact)
> only show up on the activity I already had, not on the new one. No idea
> how I can configure this, which applications shall be visible on which
> activities. I expected to be some setting for this in the application's
> window settings, but I see none.

I haven't experimented with this much myself for the reason given above 
and below, but IIRC, the controls were supposed to be on the activity 
panel.  But I'm not sure, and in fact, the controls are probably 
minimilistic at this point (see next).

FWIW, 4.6 is starting to hint at what the ultimate design is supposed to 
be, but it's not really there yet.  4.7 is when the power of activities is 
supposed to really start to become evident.

> Then, there is this activity panel (you ghet it via the cashew menu).
> Each activity has an icon. And some stop button. I clicked it, now there
> are no buttons. Shouldn't there be a play button? I remember seeing one
> the last time I tried this.

As I said, this is ATM changing and developing.  Look for more in 4.7.

> Meanwhile, due to a memory problem with the fglrx driver, I logged out
> and in again. And when I open the activity menu, I suddenly have four
> activities: Admin (my default one), Test (the 2nd one I just created),
> Test (same name, and this one has the play button, while all others show
> the stop button), and one called New Activity. Again I clicked at the
> stop button on a activity, and the button is gone. What does this button
> do? I have no idea. Should I?

You've just struck the bug I mentioned above! =:^(

Hopefully it doesn't start hatching new activities every time you logout/
in, or simply quit and restart plasma-desktop.[1]  But that's what it did 
to me once (4.5) , and I've seen reports of it doing the same to others in 
4.6.  Apparently, if you play with activities too much (as when 
experimenting), plasma can get confused and store an invalid config file.  
Once it has done that, every time it starts it gets more confused and 
hatches even more activities, etc!

Once this happens, you pretty much have to kill that config file (from 
memory, $KDEHOME/share/config/plasma-desktop-applets.rc, $KDEHOME of 
course referring to ~/.kde or ~/.kde4 by default on most distributions) 
and start over, tho for the extremely patient and reasonably technically 
inclined, it might be possible to edit out the extraneous sections of the 
file and recover to something sane, as I did here.  But it's a pain to 
figure out the config well enough to edit properly, so for most, simply 
deleting the file -- with plasma-desktop not running of course -- is the 
recommended and simplest fix.

Meanwhile, it's definitely wise to backup the plasma* files in that dir 
before you do any heavy config changes to plasma, including experimenting 
with additional activities or layouts.  Yeah, like that helps you now, but 
at least you know what to delete to stop the proliferation if you've 
already triggered it.

And I really do hope they figure out that issue and fix it for 4.7 or so, 
because by then, activities should start developing enough power that I 
and others will be interested in experimenting, and having to worry about 
loss of an already highly customized config when doing so is going to be a 
SERIOUS downer, even for those of us who know the files to backup and 
restore, should we need to.

> There'a also a tool button on each activity icon. I wondert what this
> does. I think it should open a menu to configure the activity layout,
> but it seems you can only chaneg the activity name here. Took me a while
> to figure this out. Maybe I'm too stupid, maybe it's just not intuitive
> yet.

I saw that and wondered, myself.  I suspect that's a stub-entry right now, 
and there will be more to it (like which apps to associate with the 
activity), once they get it working as they intend.

> I selected one of the Test activities, and now the cashew is gone.
> Meta-A also no longer opens the activity panel. Great. But I can change
> the desktop, there I still have the cashew, and Meta-A opens the
> Activity panel.
> Oh, and now kontact crashed, but my composing window stays open, at
> least.
> 
> Okay, I think I'll wait for 4.7.0 before I try this activity stuff
> again.

Yeah.  By 4.7 activities should have some power behind them to play with, 
and hopefully they'll have some of these stability, etc, bugs fixed by 
then.

---

[1] I do the quit/restart plasma-desktop thing occasionally here for 
various reasons, in part because I have a large always-on-top panel on the 
top of my top screen... well it's /supposed/ to be there anyway... that 
gets in the way if I want something double-full-screened across both 
monitors... and it's easier to kill plasma-desktop temporarily, restarting 
when done, than it is to fiddle with the panel options each time.  The 
/supposed/ to bit is because there's a bug in 4.6.2 that has it appearing 
at the top of the wrong monitor when plasma-desktop first starts, either 
due to the quit/restart I mentioned, or at login.  I can reposition it, 
but at the next plasma-desktop restart it's back in the wrong place 
again!  This is a new bug for 4.6.2, mentioned by others as well.

Back in kde3, the panels had a rollup button that would roll them to one 
side temporarily.  I miss that!

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman