The future of virtual desktops

[Martin Gräßlin]

----- Ursprüngliche Mitteilung -----
> A Quinta, 3 de Março de 2011 06:36:02 Aaron J. Seigo você escreveu:
> > On Friday, February 25, 2011, Hans Chen wrote:
> > > - I see virtual desktops (VDs) as subordinate to activities
> > 
> > this is incorrect. disabuse yourself of this notion.
> > 
> > > , i.e., each activity should have its own set of virtual desktops.
> > > Currently VDs are not activity aware.
> > 
> > i don't particularly see the benefit of this. it is in theory possible
> > (kwin is already aware of activities), but unless there is significant
> > benefit to such a thing, it will be very complex to add to the
> > configuration GUI.
> > 
> > > - There is an option to kind of merge activities and virtual desktops
> > 
> > no, there isn't.
> > 
> > > ("Different widgets for each desktop"). I know that it was added due
> > > to popular demand, but now that activities also manage windows I
> > > don't
> > > 
> > > think it is needed anymore. (Some users are not going to like this, I
> > > know.)
> > 
> > yes, like the people we implemented that feature for in the first
> > place: people who want different wallpapers and widgets on each
> > desktop.
> > 
> > virtual desktops and activities are actually, not just in theory but
> > actually, orthogonal. we know this from usage patterns of real live
> > users.
> :)
> 
> I catualy think that the activities change UI should ilustrate exactly
> that;   the ortogonal nature of them :)
> we would show stacks of activities showing all their VD's
> the vd's would be aligned horozontaly....(small thumbnails of them)
> and the activities would be on the verical axis.... yes Ortogonal :D
For technical reasons we cannot provide (live) thumbnails for not active activities. Personally I doubt you would recognize anything on the thumbnails. I find it difficult to recognize the windows in desktop grid and scaling everything down further does not improve the situation ;-)
> 
> in this UI one should be able to create more Vd's for an activitie or
> create   more activities. since their creation is show in ortogonal
> places it will help   people wraping their brains around the concept.
As mentioned in my other reply to the thread: kwin cannot support different number of desktops for different activities. I do not see any realistic chance that we change that with our current manpower for the next 12 months and in a year I expect us to only work on pushing our stack to Wayland (probably a task for another 12 to 24 months).

Cheers
Martin
> 
> The point of entery tor this feature showd in a minimised form alow to
> switch   activities on one click.
 
> 
> 
> -- 
> oxygen guy, "I make the pretty pictures"
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