multi-screen fixathon

[Hans Chen]

OK, that makes everything much clearer.

I still don't like that both screens are zoomed out though - this 'feature'
is what made me think that activities somehow are connected. Sure, I can see
some use cases - if you have an application that covers the cashew on one
screen and want to change activity, you can zoom out from the other screen -
but it still doesn't make sense to me;

If I want to change activity on one screen, I zoom out on that screen - and
I don't want anything to happen on the other screens.

While it's true that the activities on the other screens are unchanged, it
gives an impression that something will change there too. At least it
succeeded to confuse me.

I'm sure I'll get used to it, but right now it doesn't feel natural at all.
Maybe it's just me. =)

While I'm at it, I have two (slightly off topic) questions:
- Why is the Dashboard only triggered on one screen?
- Why is there no Zoom Out action in the "Dashboard menu"?

I have my suspicions but would like to hear your reasoning.

--

How do I get plasma debug output? I tried to run plasma in a terminal but it
didn't give any useful information, as far as I could see. Should I use GDB?

I just tried from a clean configuration and could still reproduce the bug.
There are some other nasty bugs, such as the disappearance of the cashew.
Those are much harder to reproduce though.

Right now I'm compiling trunk, will probably report later today.


2008/12/9 Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org>

> 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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>
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