is there a way to assign apps. to certain activities

[phanisvara das]

On Sat, 23 Apr 2011 17:55:06 +0530, Duncan <1i5t5.duncan at cox.net> wrote:

> ...
>
> And you mentioned 4.7.  I've not tried the live/betas yet (kde4 only came
> out of beta with 4.5, itself, IMO, and I had my fill of kde4 alpha code
> for the time being with 4.2 and 4.3!), so obviously have nothing first-
> hand there, but I *DID* happen across the plasma roadmap for 4.7/4.8, and
> one of the proposals was associating panels with activities as well.  I've
> been waiting for that as it seemed to me to be a necessary step.  I hope
> it gets done.


i'm running openSUSE 11.4 with KDE unstable in a virtual machine, to keep track of it's development. i have been using 4.6 from a pretty early beta stage without problems as my work environment and plan to do the same with 4.7, once i see sufficient advantages / lack of problems. so far i'm not seeing any obvious differences in handling or dealing with activities though.


> Meanwhile, 4.7 is still very much in development, and whether the kwin/
> plasma coordinated stuff will have hit main trunk yet, or indeed, whether
> it's coded at all, is open to question.  It may be that the features
> you're looking for simply aren't yet in 4.7, but will be by the time it
> freezes and ultimately ships.


yes, wait & see is the only option. i've asked a similar question at the kde-devel list, but got only a short answer to the negative, i.e., that funcionality isn't implemented yet. i thought i might have missed something and was asking here, if something came up.


> Then there's the activity (widgets) per desktop option (checkbox in
> kcontrol, workspace behavior, virtual desktops), which I've not tried
> either but which I think should give you a bit of that now... at the
> expense of linking the activities and desktops concepts together.  When
> activities come into their own, that's going to be a rather crippling
> option as desktops and activities are independent if similar concepts, but
> activities really aren't there yet, and as mentioned, there's already both
> window rules and kwin send-to-desktop shortcuts available, so that option
> could be a reasonable compromise in the mean time.


i've been using activities per desktop, but that leads to rather complex customizations and sooner or later, in my experience, they'll get messed up one way or the other. now i've switched to using different activities with fewer desktops each, which can be set up faster and perhaps is more stable -- since activities per desktops never was the developers' plan, as i understand, but added as an afterthought, on public request.


> Finally, given the existence of the activities submenu, I'd /guess/ that
> there's probably a dbus kwin interface that can be taken advantage of in
> scripting, using dbus-send.  But while I fondly remember the dcop-explorer
> or whatever it was tool from kde3, that allowed discovering and playing
> with that interface, I've unfortunately not seen a similar tool for kde4/
> dbus.  One would think it has to exist, but...  Anyway, the big problem
> here is actually DISCOVERING the what and how for that dbus interface, if
> it even exists in 4.6.
>
> But, between dbus and the global shortcuts mechanism, I'd be surprised if
> it wasn't possible to, if necessary using the shortcuts mechanism to send
> keystrokes, manually trigger the window menu, then the activities submenu,
> and whatever from there.  Crude, but with a smart use of shortcuts, you
> might at least be able to open the app, then trigger the shortcut to get
> it to the activity you want.  If I were activity trying to utilize them
> ATM, and I couldn't find dbus info after looking around a bit, I'd try the
> shortcut mechanism.  Either that or settle for linking activities and
> desktops thru 4.6 and use the existing desktops mechanisms.  But the
> danger there is getting so used to that, that you can't easily switch to
> the more flexible mode once it comes around with 4.7 or whatever.


i'll get into the source and API documentation of plasma / kwin and see if i can find dbus calls i can use. without this functionality i'm afraid i'll revert back to desktops per activity, since i keep forgetting where i opened which application, which i find a nuisance.


> Me?  I'll probably wait until 4.7 release and try experimenting with it
> then, hoping activities have come into their own a bit more by then, to
> where it's worth it.
>


-- 
phani.
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