activities

[Diego Moya]

Short reply:

Move activities to the third dimension - they should be a
generalization of the plasma dashboard to N layers. Open windows
should adapt to the current selected layer (dashboard = all windows
autohide; other layers = show new background + show attached plasmoids
+ change Nepomuk-enabled parts in applications)


Long reply:

On 5 February 2010 01:54, Chani wrote:
> One thing that is *very* important to me is that people must be able to
> understand activities enough to use them. A lot of people really don't get
> virtual desktops. I don't want to hold back those of us who do, but neither do
> i want to make a complex beast that scares off all but the geeks.

The current problem with VDs and activities is, they are conflicting
spatial metaphors. They both are using the plane surface in two
different inconsistent ways. If I'm working with a set of windows and
go to the right (either with the "rotating cube" or "viewport
horizontal shift" effect), it will change windows as I enter in a new
virtual desktop. But if I zoom out and zoom in to the right of the
initial workspace, it will change activity instead - same windows but
different background.

See how it doesn't make sense? The zooming interface is not the one to
blame for confusion - several popular implementations (the iPhone, for
example) show that the general public is not confused by it. But the
same relative movement arriving to different places? That's a no-no.


We should decide which service (VDs or activities) keeps the plane
metaphor, and move the other competing service to use a different one.
I first supported merging "virtual desktop" and "activity" in a 1:1
relation, but this can be too limiting - and I think I have now a
better idea.


On 5 February 2010 10:43, Marco Martin wrote:
> there were so much ideas in the past,
> - a desktop grid like, did with or without virtual desktops: problem of
> windows not showing their real content and other virtual desktop limitations.
> also been pointed out that this approach is inherently modal. is a problem?
> maybe not since if i want to change what i'm doing is a modal action per se.
>
> - a strip that looks like the widget explorer, not modal and we don't have
> virtual desktop problems. thumbnails becomes very little however and is an
> advantage because one can not worry about wrong contents anymore, but a
> disadvantage because they're so little that they could become almost
> meaningless (they should just show the containment probably, and different
> wallpaper for each contaiment shoud be almost enforced)

None of these solve the conflict bewteen the two usages of the plane.
How do you explain to the user where windows go when you switch
virtual desktops?


>
> - or we could go barebone, just text, with an activitybar, a popup menu, a
> secondary taskbar, whatever. it will probably be the first prototype anyways
> and could be the "faster" to use in the end, but it will have a big problem of
> learnability..

This *would* solve the problem, as it removes any physical metaphor
for the activities. But it makes them abstract, again.

What I think should be done is moving the activities to the Z axis.
This is a proven metaphor - windows already behave this way (a window
is the 70's portrayal of an activity - a set of tools designed to work
together). Since activities have a strong linkage to the desktop, I
suggest a metaphor of activities as a pile of desktops along the 3rd
dimension, one of top of the other.

How does this solve the conflict between desktops and activities? The
VDs can keep the horizontal plane layout, being a big table with boxes
in a grid - each box having a different group of windows. Camera
panning = switching VDs.

Activities then can be like the tablecloth on the table. We have
several layered tablecloths, and we can change the extended tablecloth
to support one activity or the other. The transition effect could be a
movement in depth, like a tickler file or a Rolodex. This is
compatible with whatever spatial effect used for the VD change (cube,
infinite strip, big plane), as activities would be layers parallel to
the VD plane.


You could use the opposite change instead and put activities in the
plane while virtual desktops are layers parallel to the activity
desktop. I don't mind, except that the plane has been used as the
standard metaphor for VDs for many years now.


Now go and make the different code snippets match to the chosen metaphor. ;-)