multi-screen fixathon

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Monday 08 December 2008, Hans Chen wrote:
> I just tried to zoom in/out again and noticed the following thing:
> - Zooming in on the right (main) screen worked fine.

yay =)

> - I couldn't change activity on the left screen. If I zoom in from the left
> screen I just get the same containments again on both screens. 

even if you select a different containment? that's not right. =/ can you 
provide some plasma debug output when you do this?

> If I use the
> right screen in the ZUI only the right containment changes.

right.


> I still haven't  figured out how Plasma handles the issue. You can switch
> to all activities on all screens, but the "zooming out on both screens"
> suggests that the activities are connected somehow. Take a look at the
> following picture:
> zui.png<http://hanswchen.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/zui.png> Are they
> connected or not?

no, they are two windows onto the same landscape.

imagine, if you will, a wall with two windows in it. they both overlook a 
grassy field. if you stand before them, you see the same grassy field.

the big difference is that the grassy field has a third dimension.

> If I zoom in to Activity 1 on the right screen, which
> activity should I get on my left screen?

whatever was last selected.

> Now look at the KWin effect Desktop Grid:

widgets are not windows.

but you're actually coming at this all wrong. the question isn't "what's the 
logical thing to happen" because (*drum rollllll*) there is more than one 
answer to that.

intead, the question should be "what are the use cases".

so here's my use cases:

* i have an application window on screen 0, full screen. i zoom out and select 
a different Activity so i can use those widgets while i'm working.

* i have two screens, screen 0 is showing a set of widgets for a work project. 
a friend pops up on line so i zoom out and on screen 1 i select my social 
networking widget set temporarily.

they are phsyically separate devices, i expect to be able to operate 
independently. why? because that's a reasonable expectation with flexibility.

it also means we don't have to put stupid hacks in so you can only see "screen 
N activities" on screen N or figure out how to do work it so the guy with 3, 4, 
5 or more screens also gets a sane result.

each Activity is an atomic unit.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Software

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