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**askrieger** · Mar 28, 2012, 02:35 PM

Frankly, (despite having used Kubuntu faithly since Breezy Badger), I have absolutly no idea what an "Activity" is. Moreover, I don't really care (very much). I can do anything I want to do and get around my system without "Activities". Enthusiastic developers are always adding "features" (without bothering to explain them to clueless users). If a developer REALLY wanted to facilitate user interactions, they would explain what they're new features do before they introduced them. Consider the example of the Muon package manager. The developer introduced it at this forum, and accepted feedback.

**Flip the Switch** · Mar 28, 2012, 02:57 PM

Originally posted by askrieger View Post

Frankly, (despite having used Kubuntu faithly since Breezy Badger), I have absolutely no idea what an "Activity" is. .

I once tried it out and lost my desktop wallpaper and settings and all my launchers.
Haven't dared to play with it again since. >

**woodsmoke** · Mar 28, 2012, 05:00 PM

askrieger,

That is an interesting bit of history, thanks for relating it. If you would care to expand, I think that most of the lurkers here would enjoy the read.

Flip the Switch.

From what you have posted, I came to the conclusion that you are one of those people who actually "know what is going on", as opposed to myself who am only a hardware kinda guy.

But, your comment rathers sums the situation in a nutshell.

woodsmoke

**GreyGeek** · Mar 28, 2012, 06:21 PM

I played with "Activity" and found a four page pager worked faster and better. I didn't care about having a different wallpaper on each page. I can change pages by simply scrolling the mouse wheel while it hovers over the pager icon in the panel.

As far as documentation goes, that is a constant problem and more difficult that most folks realize. The worst document writers of all are the developers who write the apps. They know where the tar pits and traps are and subconsciously avoid them, like smokers who light up another cigarette while two more are burning away in the ash tray.

Volunteers who write documents first have to learn how the program works before they can explain how to use it. That usually takes a technical person, if for no other reason than to join Launchpad, install all the documentation tools, version control, backups, etc... Joe or Sally Sixpack generally can't use such tools nor write good documentation.

Learning how to use the app may take several days or even weeks for complicated programs like KDELiven, or GIMP or Blender or even KMail. To document the developer tools in Maverick I had to first determine which tools were in Maverick's repository, and then visit each site and gather info. Then I had to organize the tools into one or more of several groups. I had 3 or 4 months to do it before the freeze date. Being retired I could devote a lot of time to it. I first had to learn how to use the documentation tools, which I had never used before (and which I have suggestions for several MUCH easier replacements), and then study each tool, most of which I had never used before. Only the fact that I had programmed for so many years made it easier to do the tasks. But, I had to write most of my information down because I can no longer rely on my memory.

Now, you're thinking that it would be a lot easier if someone who was familiar with each app would write the documentation. I agree. The problem is convincing that many to do so.,

That's been a year ago. I noticed in Precise's "Help" that the section on "Development" is empty. I suspect that half or more of the tools that were in Maverick's repository are not in Precise.

Then, there was the "poisonous user" episode when KDE 4.0 was first released. A grad student volunteered to write a weekly article explaining what each of the plasmoids did and how to use them. At the time KDE4 was a BIG experiment and the dev crew was experimenting as quickly as they could to arrive at their final DE environment. They were pushed by Trolltech's time table for abandoning Qt3. In Linux the mantra has always been "release early, release often" so that users could help find bugs and report back to the developers via bugzillas, instead of posting useless rants in forums around the net. Some began personally attacking the grad student. He had just seen this video about "Poisonous Users", and made a note at the end of one article that some "users" were poisonous to the KDE project and aren't needed. He was dead on, and still is, but that made them even more venomous and frothy. He quit in disgust, and all those loudmouths, AND THE REST OF US, lost the best source of documentation they had.

I discussed it four years ago here at LinuxToday. I'm including it here in case LT goes away.

There SJVN goes.... again... ( Jul 4, 2008, 19:33:29 )

striving for more page hits with his "analysis" of why Tony Unrau resigned from the KDE developers group.

The impression being floated is that Unrau was a developer. He was not. He was a contributor, a special variety of KDE4 user that is in high demand, unlike the "poisonous user". Unrau, by his own admission wasn't a C++ coder: "I occasionally drop a few lines of code, but C++ is not my strong point. As time permits, I've contributed a few lines to KDE 4, such as moving some of the kdesktop code into krunner (screensaver controls) and a few other bits."
http://behindkde.org/people/troy

Here is what he did: "I write user-oriented KDE press for The Dot, the most prominent example being the Road to KDE 4 series." et. al.

In other words, with text and screen shots, Tony was showing KDE users the progress being made by KDE4 developers. As such, strange as it may seem, he became the focal point for mostly ignorant rants against KDE4, and many personal attacks. These attacks, which I believe to be primarily astroturfing by those who use other desktops or OSs, gave rise to the "poisonous users" blog posting, which stated "If the users are harming the project, we don't need those users." Astroturfers leave out the first part. That posting, also the focus of wild and mostly negative misinterpretation, wasn't against users, it was pointing out that NO PROJECT, KDE4, GNOME or any of the 300+ distros will survive if they don't generate a group of contributors out of the user base. Tony was part of that group. An unpaid volunteer contributing his valuable time, energy and probably money to spreading the news of the progress of KDE4 development. It makes you wonder: What kind of KDE user kills the messenger? As a KDE user I suspect that few other REAL KDE4 users are so toxic that they'd kill the goose that lays the Golden Egg, so the rants have to be from others, not KDE users.

SJVN seems to dismiss Tony's reasons for resigning, but even back in May in 2007, Tony states he was short on time. It's understandable. He was working on his Geophysics degree then, and I understand that he is now working on his Doctorate. It took me three years of research and time to write a 52 page thesis on the synthesis and anti-cancer metabolite properties of 3-amino-3,4-dihydro-1-hydroxy-carbostyrile. I understand when he says he is short on time. And, from his options, I can understand why he chose to drop KDE. One puts in their time where it is most appreciated.

So, all you anti-KDE4 ranters who seem to know better than anyone else just exactly what all KDE users need or want, there is an open position at KDE. It's time to step up to the plate and put your time and skills where your mouth has been. KDE needs a new marketing person. You don't need to know how to code. Do you have the chops, or do you just want to continue to do drive-by blog shootings from behind anonymous or fake sigs?
---
GreyGeek

The "take-away" point is that:
That posting, also the focus of wild and mostly negative misinterpretation, wasn't against users, it was pointing out that NO PROJECT, KDE4, GNOME or any of the 300+ distros will survive if they don't generate a group of contributors out of the user base.

Frankly, I am amazed that anything in KDE, or Gnome, gets documented.

**woodsmoke** · Mar 28, 2012, 07:11 PM

That post can only be described as.... amazing.

woodsmoke

**Flip the Switch** · Mar 29, 2012, 01:51 AM

From what you have posted, I came to the conclusion that you are one of those people who actually "know what is going on", as opposed to myself who am only a hardware kinda guy.

Nope. Just a fiddler with too much spare time on his hands.

**claydoh** · Mar 29, 2012, 07:23 PM

So... go join the kubuntu-devel mailing list, make this suggestion

Documentation is one of the least loved of tasks in Kubuntu, yet is one area us regular users can be of the most help.
There has been talk of expanding the docs into a more visually rich format. User involvement will be vital in making this happen, but getting users to go and help has been difficult at most times.

The official Help docs available in your Kmenu is usually quite good,imo, and underutilized.
And as Kubuntu is very KDE, it's Userbase has some of what you seek.

**woodsmoke** · Mar 29, 2012, 08:28 PM

K
woodsmoke

**Jonas** · Apr 22, 2012, 04:41 PM

I guess the question here is (and elsewhere), what are activities actually good for? When I started to use GNULinux, Ubuntu and later Kubuntu I wasn't sure why I would need 2-4 workspaces, today I use 4 all the time, with screen-edge switching. Today I wouldn't manage without it.

As of Maverick I have set up 4 Activities, it work fine, no crash or glitches, but I haven't really find any use of the spare 3. Recently I noticed that I could set up one activity with no energy-saving functions. So my "photo" activity on my laptop have use no screen saver or screen shutdown. This is the screen I switch to and use when I plug the laptop to the TV and watch movies (with VLC) or streams.

So this is at least one reason to use activities, and i have a feeling that, in two years, activities is something I wont be able to live with.

I'd like to add that this "Document" (~newbie tour) could be a webslice/minitube widget linked to a visual- video instruction, on youtube or vimeo.

my 2 c

/jonas

edit; oh yea, almost forgot - KDE brainstorm is a very interesting place to read other angles and ideas about KDE, I have a peak there weekly

http://forum.kde.org/viewforum.php?f=83

**GreyGeek** · Apr 22, 2012, 05:15 PM

I'm like you, Jonas, I tried Activites but found it didn't suit the way I use my desktop. My primary tool is the browser and tabs in the browser works better for that. When I am not using the browser I rely on the page tabs in the panel, Alt+F4, or the app icons in the panel. Even though I keep two pages in the pager icon I haven't used the second one in years. But, I've seen some nifty setups using Activities. That's the neat thing about Linux & KDE -- one isn't tied to one DE paradigm or even one DE.

**james147** · Apr 22, 2012, 06:13 PM

Originally posted by askrieger View Post

Frankly, (despite having used Kubuntu faithly since Breezy Badger), I have absolutly no idea what an "Activity" is. Moreover, I don't really care (very much). I can do anything I want to do and get around my system without "Activities". Enthusiastic developers are always adding "features" (without bothering to explain them to clueless users).

One of the major problems with activities is that they are a very basic concept, they are a way of grouping "tasks" similar to how vitrual desktop where deigned to group windows. This has lead to mean of the developers of activities wanting different things from them and they are still not a mature project that will continue to evolve over the next few years.

One of the major problems with developers writing end user documentation is they then wont have the time to actually write the feature in the first place, and what good is documentation about a feature exists when the feature doesn't (or doesn't work as expected since it haven't been finished). And this all assumes the developers are good at explaining things to the end user, which they rarely are.

I think the part of the problem with the confusion about activities is that they still aren't a mature feature. They are still under rapid development and lack allot of the polish of the more mature features.

What I would suggest to most people is to ignore them for now (you aren't forced to interact with them if you don't want to or don't under stand them) and wait for them to mature a bit more before trying to make sense of them.

Originally posted by Jonas View Post

I guess the question here is (and elsewhere), what are activities actually good for? When I started to use GNULinux, Ubuntu and later Kubuntu I wasn't sure why I would need 2-4 workspaces, today I use 4 all the time, with screen-edge switching. Today I wouldn't manage without it.

As of Maverick I have set up 4 Activities, it work fine, no crash or glitches, but I haven't really find any use of the spare 3. Recently I noticed that I could set up one activity with no energy-saving functions. So my "photo" activity on my laptop have use no screen saver or screen shutdown. This is the screen I switch to and use when I plug the laptop to the TV and watch movies (with VLC) or streams.

So this is at least one reason to use activities, and i have a feeling that, in two years, activities is something I wont be able to live with.

Wont be able to live with or without?

Some of the problem with activities in their current state is that there isn't much that the user can interact with to fully show what they can be used for and at the moment they resemble virtual desktops that you can start and stop that are much more annoying to switch between (and most users don't even know you can start/stop them).

What you are seeing with the power management is the first use of one of the features activities offer, a way for programs to know and act differently according to what activity they are in. The possibilities for this feature are endless, but it is up to application developers and not the plasma developers or end users to make use of this feature.

I believe the main goal of activities is to change the way the computer acts depending on what activity you are in so that you can better organise your work flow. Just like what virtual desktops where originally designed to do.

And just like you have created an activity for media that disabled the screen power saving features (and possibly up the screen brightness to max if your on a laptop as well) you could create one that enables all the power saving options for when you know you are going to be away from a power source for a long time. But in addition to this in the future you might be able to do things such as disabling all notifications when you switch to a media or presentation based activity (as well as the power saving options) so that you know you wont get those annoying messages when giving a presentation and that the screen will never turn off all by just switching to a different activity. Hell, it might be possible in the future to have the computer switch to an activity when an event happens, such as you plug in a projector so that you can switch to the presentation activity with its turned off notifications and power saving options (and possibly adjust the resolution and dual screen options) without having to do anything else and then switch back again when you unplug it.

That is just one of the things that I imagine possible when activities finally mature. But as they are right now its abit hard to find a use case for them as they yet complete.

/me wonders if that should be its own thread and goes to find out what this thread was originally about

Ahh yes, I wonder if it would be a good idea to create a top tips widget similar to the ones you find on other devices (such as the android) that give you tips about how to use the system. This will give the user hints about what the system can do that they can read when ever they want to and unlike a window it wont initially get in their way as it will be part of the background (unlike a window which the user will probably just close and not know how to open again when they want it).

Would any one else be interested in such a project? The widget itself would be trivial (and will probably take no more then a day to finish and polish) but coming up with the actual tips would be harder/take more time. I will create a mock widget tomorrow (will involve actually leaning how to create plasma widgets, though I am lead to believe this isn't hard). If any one is interested in helping please do let me know.

**bra|10n** · Apr 22, 2012, 06:45 PM

Originally posted by james147 View Post

Ahh yes, I wonder if it would be a good idea to create a top tips widget similar to the ones you find on other devices (such as the android) that give you tips about how to use the system. This will give the user hints about what the system can do that they can read when ever they want to and unlike a window it wont initially get in their way as it will be part of the background (unlike a window which the user will probably just close and not know how to open again when they want it).

Would any one else be interested in such a project? The widget itself would be trivial (and will probably take no more then a day to finish and polish) but coming up with the actual tips would be harder/take more time. I will create a mock widget tomorrow (will involve actually leaning how to create plasma widgets, though I am lead to believe this isn't hard). If any one is interested in helping please do let me know.

I think this is a fabulous idea

A suggestion though if I may...

As a first step, rather than a "How to..." perhaps a "Kubuntu Desktop Setup" widget, outlining many of the simple configuration settings, links to the applicable SystemSettings sections etc.
Certainly not intended to be a comprehensive master the KDE desktop exercise, but more intended to answer the simple questions often asked here and on other forums, for example, "How to STOP Firefox opening on EVERY restart". Perhaps links back here to these forums for when more comprehensive support is required also.

I think with the knowledge base we have available to us via the members here this initiative could prove to be a valuable "Welcome", come transitioning feature of Kubuntu.

**Jonas** · Apr 23, 2012, 05:51 AM

Originally posted by james147 View Post

Wont be able to live with or without?

was meant as "without", late night typo

I agree on your widget idea! I'm not sure what a new user would prefer in general but I would much prefer a tour/tutorial heavy with pictures and/or linked or "sliced". As my memory tend to be better in visual rather then text, it might just be me, but with visual content the new user might not get tired with huge blocks of text. Besides - this forum is mainly text based and there's quite a lot of textual resources and How-To's. I'll start brainstorming what should be included( I guess some goes without saying, but anyhow)

How to ....

Basic desktop use.

use the widgets
understand plasma desktop
- what's the cashew ?
- unlocking-locking widgets
understand activities
adding and moving panels
functionality
- desktop effects - cube/sphere
- desktop screen edges
- Senior management - desktop scaling/magnifiq

Install desktop items/applications

add a widget to desktop
install a widget from main repository (lancelot?)
add the restricted repository (mp3, DVD support? -basic comment regarding free vs propriety)
add a repository using the GUI
add a repository using CLI (launchpad & kde-goodies?/other well maintained ppa)
install a application from either of those new repositories GUI & CLI
install widget from a .tar.bz package (KDE-looks/apps)
set up and customize your desktop
install WINE

Hardware

adding/mounting a harddrive GUI
make that harddrive auto mount on bootup
basic printer setup
set up wifi (if needed and/or basic troubleshooting - install extra package?)
install propriety graphic driver using jockey (comment on kernel/reboot?
understand why ext4 don't fragment files

Safety

understand the firewall? and settings frontend
install or not to install anti-virus application
basic knowledge on safety
- there are root-kits - don't install "anything"(!)?)
- not to spread virus via e-mail

Interaction

Set up Kmail
add a plugin to dolphin linking to Flickr/image service(?)
using IRC
Quassel
Kopete
launchpad - bug reports (brief comment on GNULinux community?)
KFN - policies/rules and Netiquette

These are some I think would be helpful to the new user. As stated some maybe goes with out saying for most, but not for all, some will only be links or very brief, but I think they will reduce the number of posts on KFN - giving more time to answer other questions - time well spent perhaps? I'm sure there are many things that I've forgotten, or take for granted that most people simply just know. Some of above are questions I've seen on "help the new guy".

i saw that there is a youtube/google account called kubuntuforum, someone here?

Best regards

Jonas

**james147** · Apr 23, 2012, 06:48 AM

I have started a new thread about the widget here rather then continuing to hijack this one

Yes, I think it might help new users.	100.00%	13 votes
No, I do not think it might help new users.	0.00%	0 votes

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A SIMPLE answer on explaning activities/widgets/panel

A SIMPLE answer on explaning activities/widgets/panel

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