What woodsmoke thinks an "activity" "should" do.

[woodsmoke]

I originally posted this in the thread about "tabs" but thought I would make it a thread for discussion,

The idea may not be feasible at all. But...

This is "kind of" what I thought would happen when one used an "activity":

I thought that one would :

a) choose or create an "activity" and it would be in a "folder", possibly and one could tag it "aardvark".

b) One would have in the "folder" some kind of "menu" which woud allow one to

i) choose one or more "applications" such as a wordprocessor and GIMP to be "in the activity".
ii) "tag" or "label" various documents with a label such as "aardvark". Tag or label various images as "aardvark".
iii) "save" a browser with one or more web pages open to "aardvark".

c) Then, when one logs in one sees the "run" box automatically open, one types in "aardvark" and the folder automagically appears on the desktop, with the documents and images already open and ready to be worked on from the last close of the folder.

d) when one closed the folder all items were automagically saved.

That, to me, is what I thougth the "activity" would do and may be, indirectly, what is being discussed in the tabs and brainstorming thread

just a thought.

woodsmoke

PPS: here is a " typical" article about what "acitvities" "do", it is all about what the activites "could do" and there is much talk of placing widgets and a small mention of folder view. But basically the present "activity" to me is a "virtual desktop" that has various "clickable stuff" on it or widgets. This is different from what I mention above.

One would have to "open" the documents manually, individually, same for images, same for browser.

http://maketecheasier.com/use-kde-pl...ies/2010/09/01

[SecretCode]

It reminds me of a feature in OS/2, back in 1994 or thereabouts (sometime when I was working at IBM, anyway), called "work areas". When you launched a "work area", the documents and apps you'd placed in it would all reopen.

I agree with most of your description of what activities should do - except that I don't think it should necessarily be related to a disk folder. (Which is the most common use of the word ... if you mean a more general kind of container that's fine.)

[james147]

This sounds very similar to what the activities in kde already do... although their UI and the way you interact with them is abit annoying atm.

Applications can be assigned to an activity (much the way they can be to virtual desktops) but unlike virtual desktops applications can be aware of what activity they are in (although currently not many applications take advantage of this, the only one I can think is the power management feature in kde 4.8 allows you to set different profiles for each activity).

You can also start and stop activities and doing so start/stops the applications associated with that activity. The only difference here from what you said is you can have multiple activities running at the same time (which makes switching between frequently used ones quicker).

As for opening documents and web pages, activities can already do this so long as the application supports sessions (which allot of applications do) in the same way the kde already opens applications when you login that where previously running.

What I would like to see is a better way to interact (start/stop/switch between) with them as well as better application level support like that of the power management.

Also, I would like to see better integration with virtual desktops... I don't see much need for both and wouldn't mind merging the two concepts (possibly as an optional option).

[SecretCode]

doing so start/stops the applications associated with that activity

Does it? I couldn't get this to happen (it's a while since I've played with them though).

What I would like to see is a better way to interact (start/stop/switch between) with them as well as better application level support like that of the power management.

Also, I would like to see better integration with virtual desktops... I don't see much need for both and wouldn't mind merging the two concepts (possibly as an optional option).

Limited interaction and control over activities (via keyboard shortcuts, mouse hotspots, menu items etc) is for me the most serious current limitation of activities. I'm sure this will improve though.

[james147]

Does it? I couldn't get this to happen (it's a while since I've played with them though).

It did when I last played with it.

Limited interaction and control over activities (via keyboard shortcuts, mouse hotspots, menu items etc) is for me the most serious current limitation of activities. I'm sure this will improve though.

Yeah, though there are hooks for keyboard shortcuts, just non set by default. Setting them makes switching between them nicer.

Edit: Actually at least kde 4.8 and later have Meta+tab and Meta+shift+tab for next/previous activities assigned by default and meta+q to bring up the activity display.

[woodsmoke]

James147

Could you please expand on this a little?

so long as the application supports sessions (which allot of applications do)

woodcurioussmoke

[james147]

Could you please expand on this a little?

When you logout (or, now stop a activity) kde (or more specifically ksmserver) stops the applications and asks them to save their state. When you next login (or start an activity again) kde starts the applications and asks them to resume the last state they where in. It is aware of different instances of applications (so if you have two windows of the same application open, it will run two instances of that program and restore both sessions correctly).

But support for this needs to be added to the application, which is very easy to do in kde so most kde applications take advantage of this.

See here for more information as well.

[woodsmoke]

James147
That was all VERY interesting, all sorts of flow charts, and pie charts ( I just love pie, especially Key Lime ) and scripty things. I completely understand what is needed to be done except, since I'm not that bright, I just don't know "how" to do it!
I looked around in Libre Office to see if there is a clickable button to have it "save session" but nothing that I obviously saw.

There is discussion that the whole "window" has to be made aware to save the session.

I assume, from the second link, that we are to make a script.

Well, one can do that in Gedit, but I have no clue, since I'm not into all those scripty things.

So I think it would be particularly helpful if someone could actually write out a script that would save and reopen a PARTICULAR application, not just a generic "oh, just do this".

Then some old doof like me could actually do it in Gedit or something and save it and try it out.

Unless, of course, there is a button to click "someplace"....much easier! lol

woodsmoke

[james147]

woodsmoke, my point was that most applications (haven't used libre office in a while so can't say if it can, but it would surprise me if it didn't) can already save their state, although this is normally invisible to the end user and is triggered when the session manager (ksmserver for kde) tells that application to quit (rather then having a button the user can click). You shouldn't need to script anything and unfortunately if the application dosn't support this already then it would be fairly hard to write a wrapper script to enable it to. The best bet in that situation would be to file a bug report and possibly write a patch to fix it.

[woodsmoke]

thanks very much james147

woodsmoke

[rms]

Heh, I wonder how Firefox manages to restore it's state since it is a gtk app and probably doesn't use or inherit KMainWindow class?

[james147]

Heh, I wonder how Firefox manages to restore it's state since it is a gtk app and probably doesn't use or inherit KMainWindow class?

kde and qt aren't the only two tool kits that support this ^^ any decent tool kit should

[rms]

It's odd... because I haven't noticed that Gnome 3 supports restoring sessions, yet.

@woodsmoke

Regarding LibreOffice, make session support your wish cause it seems feasible.

[james147]

It's odd... because I haven't noticed that Gnome 3 supports restoring sessions, yet.

gtk seems to support session managment though I don't use gnome so wouldn't know how it works for them.

[rms]

Thanks, it seems that it doesn't at least the last time I fiddled with it.