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List:       kde-panel-devel
Subject:    Re: Discussion for Virtual Desktops and Activities future
From:       Nate Graham <nate () kde ! org>
Date:       2018-07-13 15:50:52
Message-ID: 16494567a9c.f1d1dd7c1646.9061296472924289865 () kde ! org
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 ---- On Fri, 13 Jul 2018 08:22:31 -0700 Ivan Čukić <ivan.cukic@kde.org> wrote ---- \
  > This would provide the more obvious distinction - "groups" are for 
 > window management and "activities" are about providing different 
 > workspaces. "groups" would be volatile in the sense that their number 
 > can vary a lot - quick creation, automatic destruction etc. (like 
 > activities in gnome shell) 

Hmm, just on first glance I'm not a huge fan of this. It seems like it would just \
replace confusion over two similar-but-slightly-different concepts that have their \
own user interfaces with confusion over two other similar-but-slightly-different \
concepts that have their own user interfaces.

Instead, perhaps we can help out the Group C users by leveraging an existing feature \
of our Virtual Desktop implementation: the ability to have not just a flat list of \
Virtual Desktops, but rather a two-dimensional array of them. Users who currently use \
both multiple Activities and multiple Virtual Desktops could use the columns to \
approximate Activities, and the rows within each column as actual Virtual Desktops. \
Here's an example:

Status quo
==========

Activity 1: work
- Virtual Desktop 1: Web browser and IDE
- Virtual Desktop 2: Email and chat apps

Activity 2: home
- Virtual Desktop 1: Web browser and music player
- Virtual Desktop 2: IRC and Telegram


Proposed new workflow
=====================

 Work "stack"         Home "stack"
> ------------|       |------------|
> VD 1    |       |    VD 3    |
> Web browser|       | Web browser|
> IDE    |       |Music player|
> ------------|       |------------|

> ------------|       |------------|
> VD 2    |       |    VD 4    |
> Email   |       |Konversation|
> chat    |       |  Telegram  |
> ------------|       |------------|

With a user interface that explicitly supports and encourages this sort of thing \
(e.g. the ability to apply current activity-specific features such to multiple \
Virtual Desktops; "next" and "previous" keyboard shortcuts automatically bound to the \
top row of each column), it might be sufficient.

Nate


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