Bug 371446

Summary:	[Feature Request] - Activity Switcher shouldnt break the activities order based on current activity
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	Michail Vourlakos <mvourlakos>
Component:	Activity Switcher sidebar	Assignee:	Ivan Čukić <ivan.cukic>
Status:	RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	kde, plasma-bugs-null
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	5.8.2
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Michail Vourlakos 2016-10-21 15:56:52 UTC

I noticed that the Activity Switcher shows always the current activity to be the first one. My opinion is that this shouldnt happen. I would propose that current activity should just remain at its position and only to get highlighted (this is the default Meta+Tab behavior when changing activities).

Cons of current behavior:
- the user's mental model for the activities order is broken every time that the active activity is changed
- the activities' order does not correspond with other places they are shown for example at the activity pager 

I dont know if this is a design decision but I would like a lot to have your feedback.

Personally because of the current behavior every time I open the "Activities Switcher" I dont expect to see something specific, I have to search for the activity to interact with.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 David Edmundson 2016-10-22 09:11:47 UTC

sounds sensible

Comment 2 Ivan Čukić 2016-10-22 09:37:13 UTC

Hi Michail,

The list is sorted to have the most recently used activities first. And that *is* the design decision taken collectively at one of the previous Plasma developer sprints.

The switcher sorts the list in the same way Alt+Tab sorts the windows.

Cheers,
Ivan

Comment 3 Michail Vourlakos 2016-10-22 09:42:52 UTC

Hello Ivan,

so could you please give me your opinion how the situation with the activity pager should be sorted out?
 
The current situation is the following, if a user has the activity pager in its panel there are situations that the activity pager highlights the last activity and the activity switcher always the first one... I dont know, at least for me this is confusing. Either way you are the maintainers you are deciding...

regards,
michail

Comment 4 Ivan Čukić 2016-10-31 08:11:25 UTC

The default switcher is designed to behave like alt-tab - and just like alt-tab it can show items in a different order to other places (alt-tab shows most recent windows first, unlike the task manager on the panel).

The activity pager is an alternative (not a part of the main Plasma experience, as it is in the kdeplasma-addons and not a part of plasma) activity switcher which does things in a different way.

If you like the activities to be ordered by name, you can use it instead of the meta+q switcher. I hope someone will port the various alternative activity switchers[1] from Plasma 4 to Plasma 5 which would provide more alternatives for this.

[1] Like this one - I actually used this instead of the default one in Plasma 4: https://store.kde.org/content/show.php/Activity+Manager+Plasmoid?content=136278