Discussion for Virtual Desktops and Activities future

[Eike Hein]

On 07/04/2018 03:00 AM, Ivan Čukić wrote:
> Wondering where the original discussion happened where 'we' decided to
> merge two orthogonal concepts into one. Can you point me to the relevant
> thread on plasma-devel?

This is the relevant thread :-)

I think this is a fair recap so far:

* When Martin and I started talking about the Wayland protocol, we
  were keen to do work that would reusable for either use case. This
  resulted in a draft protocol by Martin which as far as window
  management goes is a superset of what X11 virtual desktops and
  Activities can do.
* We now have working code based on the above that's gearing up to
  make virtual desktops work on Wayland, with no work yet done on
  Activities in any way.
* At the Plasma 5.14 kickoff it was decided not to work on Activities
  for the 5.14 timeframe, so there's ample room for discussions and
  decision-making.
* Marco really wants to merge them.
* I'm indifferent because I don't use either.


I think it's a reality that we have users who use both together,
using seperate activities for silo'ing files and favorites, and
virtual desktops to partition window-space within them.

I think it's also a reality that we have users who avoid using
both because of the perception of multiplied complexity, and
miss out on Activities features because they stick to virtual
desktops for simplicty.

It's also reality that we have critics who complain the two are
redundant and it's all a big mess.


I don't think we have any clue what the percentages are, or what the
opportunity cost to having both really is.


It's not a surprise to me that the idea of merging them has come up,
and I can see the appeal of a more simplified system. It does mean
being willing to take some people's existing workflows away, though.


I also think merging has technical risks, e.g. if it increases the
latency of a "virtual desktop switch" it could make the perhaps
most-used aspect of the feature unergonomic.


I also think which of our options is more appealing is also up
to what UI we use to expose them in the end, e.g. the VDG's
mulled Activity overview/dashboard thingie.


Cheers,
Eike