activities overview, take N

[Chani]

> so what's wrong with the overview thing in gnome-shell? in one word: it's
> modal.

now that I think about it, that's part of what was wrong with the zui too.

> 
> applications would get little dummy representations of themselves drawn in
> little boxes. i kept thinking "this is really just another form of the
>  tasks widget".

yep, "a fullscreen taskbar + activity bar" ;)


> 
> * in the same panel controller window that we now show the Add Widgets
> interface, we could show a Choose Activity interface. it would share a lot
>  of presentation code with Add Widgets for consistency.

hmmmmm. interesting.

> 
> * instead of categories in the tab widget it would have  "Active" and
> "Stored". instead of destroying an Activity, you could store it for later
>  use. these stored Activities would then show up in the Stored section; an
>  rc file and a screenshot pic would be saved to disk for each stored
>  Activity. store and trash would perhaps appear in the hover interface that
>  pops up when the icon is moused over or in a touch based world selected.

+1; fits perfectly with how I imagine containment saving. we could make them 
draggable to the other tab too.

> 
> * a "New Activity" tab would appear Active and Stored and would allow you
>  to create a new activity, including picking what kind of activity and
>  optionally what other activity you would like to clone

interesting. I ended up going with the "don't force any decisions, just create 
the damn thing and they can configure it later" approach. do you think it's 
better to offer options at creation time?

as for cloning... I have, for quite a while now, secretly wanted a "clone" 
option for any applet. mostly for the notes plasmoid and for containments. can 
we get cloning implemented in Applet so it's available for applets not just 
containments? :)

> 
> * associating a Window with an Activity could happen in one of two places:
>  a new button in the window title bar (would mean some adjustment to kwin)
>  that would list activities from nepomuk. the other place would be the
>  context menu of items in the tasks widget

think about the "to desktop" menu that appears in the contextmenu of both the 
window title and the taskbar entry. I would've just copied that; it's useful 
but not very discoverable.
having a new titlebar button available? hmm. could be a good idea.
the other way I move windows to other desktops is by dragging... I like 
dragging... :)

> 
> * the tasks widget could have an added "show only windows for the current
> activity" feature

+1

> 
> * a "hidden windows" button could be shown in the tasks widget when there
>  are hidden-by-activity-change windows around; switching to one of those
>  windows would switch the activity as well?

I'm not sure. we don't do that for desktops. but because we don't do that for 
desktops, I've seen people lose windows. :)
hey, can we do that for desktops right now and see how it works? :)

> 
> * a "Choose Activity" button would appear in the toolboxes (panel and
>  desktop)

+1

hrm. when I first read this I was thinking "popup menu with plain list of 
activities", but actually showing the activity bar would make more sense. is 
that what you meant?

oh hey, a bit offtopic but I have a feeling the keyboard-shortcuts button in 
the cashew would really be better off in that new plasma KCM... must remember 
to do something about that...

> 
> * the kwin desktop grid effect would have remove/add buttons added to it to
> fill the virtual desktop management gap a bit more; we should offer a
>  plasmoid to trigger it and perhaps add it, by default, to the panel

sure, and my next plasma patch (soon as I stop freaking out about robocup) 
will be an "add desktop" action in the pager. I've forbidden myself from 
changing my number of virtual desktops until I add that action ;)

a generic "trigger kwin effect" plasmoid should almost be a Junior Job :)

> 
> * windows associated with an activity could be listed in the mouse over pop
>  up in the Choose Activities interface

+1
hmm... can we drag windows to the activities somehow? would there be an easy 
way to unassociate windows from the activity bar?

> 
> * in a-containment-per-virtual-desktop mode (which i'm starting to feel
>  small amounts of regret over offering ... but maybe i'm just being
>  pessimistic :) the "Choose Activities" would be per-virtual-desktop. if
>  you wanted to migrate an activity from one desktop to another, you'd have
>  to store it first. the more i think about per-virtual-desktop containments
>  the more i cringe, though.

this paragraph makes me cringe. I don't get it and I'm not sure I want to. o.0
certainly for different *screens* that mechanism makes perfect sense (or I seem 
to remember thinking it was the best way).
let's see.. the "current" activity is per-desktop.. so then if you want to 
switch, you can change desktop... but for each desktop there can be windows 
hidden because they're on another activity... uurgh. don't wanna think about 
it :P

although it does make me wonder... do multi-monitor people want both their 
monitors to switch activity at once, or do they want to be able to mix & 
match?

> 
> there's probably more than could be done along this line of thinking. any
> ideas?

what happens to associated windows when their activity gets stored?
1)do they forget their association?
2)do they remember their association and reassociate themselves if that 
activity comes back?
3)do they get stored too somehow, like a mini-session?

I think #3 could be kinda awesome - you could stash away a bunch of work you 
were doing on a project with resource-hungry apps, and provided the apps 
supported session stuff properly, you could just restore that whole project 
again later with hardly any effort. :)

if it's a lot of work, we could leave it open as a feature to add in 4.5 or 
something.

one thing that could be tricky is handling multiple-associations sanely. it'd 
be really cool if we could get a window associated with three activities (say, 
my konq window for generic school stuff, associated with every course activity) 
to be stored when the last school activity is stored and restored when one of 
those activities is restored. sort of a smart combination of #2 and #3.

---------

associating a window with >1 activity... how can that be done gracefully?
when doing it from the taskbar, do we have an "activity" submenu with 
checkable actions? do we have two submenus, "copy to activity" and "move to 
activity" like kopete does for contact groups?
if windows/tasks are dragged, I assume that counts as a move; not only are you 
physically moving something, but I expect move will be a far more common 
action than copy.

> 
> the basic change in direction is that instead of making it a full on mode a
> person must switch into to get an overview of things, it becomes part of
>  the overall system that doesn't require you to put away your windows and
>  other tools in the meantime.
> 
> thoughts?
> 

it's a good idea.

/me ponders

I might still be interested in some sort of fullscreen window organizer... oh, 
wait. that's what composite is for. :/
well, maybe I'll make an "organization" acttivity that just has a really big 
taskbar on it ;) or I'll make a plasmoid that's designed specifically for 
managing every little detail of windows and their associations to desktops and 
activities.

-- 
This message brought to you by eevil bananas and the number 3.
www.chani3.com
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