some thoughts on virtual desktops

[Shantanu Tushar Jha]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Chani <chanika at gmail.com> wrote:
> this email meandered from plasma to kwin, so I'm crossposting. remember to
> keep both lists in replies please :)
>
> so I was thinking a bit about virtual desktops and wallpaper n'stuff.
> it seems to me that the majority of people using the per-virtual-desktop
> feature are really only interested in the per-desktop wallpaper part of it.
> (do correct me if I'm wrong about that :)

Not contributing any idea, just my views-
Its not just the wallpaper, for example I'm one of those, and to me
activities tied to virtual desktops means something like I have one
activity for each "work" (e.g. school/personal/kde development). So,
I'll have different applets on different activities and "tie"
different windows to corresponding activities. Again, for example that
means keeping Digikam on my personal activity and Wikipedia on school
activity along with the dictionary applet.

I remember Nuno doing a survey over K3B icons. Can we have some sort
of survey to find what the majority of people want it to be? Or, do
something that satisfies both (I still wonder what happened to the
Window grouping idea?).

>
> now, ignoring for a moment the people who do want activities tied to virtual
> desktops... the ones who want different walpaper, I only really see two reasons
> they want it:
>
> 1) to easily identify which desktop they're on or which desktop they want to
> be on (a big colourful picture requires *much* less thought than text. heck,
> just removing the colours from window icons in alt-tab has made me have to
> think a lot more)
> 2) pretty shiny desktop-cube effect
>
> I'm sure there's a few people who just want it because they got used to it in
> kde3, too, but let's ignore them for now :)
>
> now, me, being composite-less... if I still wanted this, I'd be happy with a
> wallpaper plugin that let me set per-desktop wallpaper. but most people seem
> to have composite, and given how much of a fuss there was about the taskbar
> showing the wrong tasks, having the desktop show the 'wrong' wallpaper would
> annoy them much more. and actually break the second part of (1) - a grid or
> cube of desktops all showing the same background does not help you to quickly
> identify the one you want.
>
> so, wah. :( my clever idea to write a magical wallpaper plugin would only help
> the non-composite users.
>
> but is there anything we can do about this? put aside thoughts of wallpaper
> for a moment. just think: what can remind me of what desktop I'm on, without
> making me think? what can distinguish my virtual desktops in an effect so that
> I don't have to think?
>
> hmm. guess what, I just had an idea of sorts. :) let's say the config page for
> virtual desktops lets you set a colour for that desktop. then have desktop
> effects that show >1 desktop highlight each desktop with its colour, draw a
> border around them, something... just give each desktop its own colour in some
> way. and the pager could use the colours too, so it looks less like a pile of
> tiny boxes all alike. :)
> and someday I might write a little plasmoid that just sits in my panel and
> reminds me of which desktop I'm on, because right now I see the panel more
> than the desktop, and the pager doesn't give me that information...
>
> I hope nuno won't hate this idea... I know letting the user define arbitrary
> colours makes it hard for things to be pretty, but using colour as a label is
> so *useful*.
>
> anyone else got other ideas? :)
>
Yep, color looks like a good idea. Seems quite natural to the mind.

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-- 
Shantanu Tushar    (UTC +0530)
http://www.shantanutushar.com