Bug 405033

Summary: Manual sorting of activities
Product: [Frameworks and Libraries] plasma-activities Reporter: Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa>
Component: generalAssignee: Ivan Čukić <ivan.cukic>
Status: REPORTED ---    
Severity: normal CC: eridanired123, kd8bny, muesli, nate, plasma-bugs-null
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Other   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Shriramana Sharma 2019-03-03 12:54:33 UTC 
This is the Plasma 5 version of bug #251614 filed as per https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=251614#c5.

SUMMARY
I am using Plasma 5.12.7 on Kubuntu Bionic LTS with latest updates as of date. 

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
I go to System Settings > Desktop Behaviour > Activities and create a few activities.

OBSERVED RESULT
The activities are automatically sorted based on the name and there is no option to manually sort them.

EXPECTED RESULT
There should be an option to manually sort them and this should be reflected in `kactivities-cli --list-activities`.

BENEFIT
Those who have a mental order of their activities (like the OP of the earlier bug #251614) will be easier able to switch between activities.
Comment 1 David Edmundson 2019-03-03 16:38:53 UTC 
@shariamana which UI do you use for switching?
Comment 2 Shriramana Sharma 2019-03-04 02:50:05 UTC 
Hello. I have the activity pager applet on my panel where I can wheel to move through activities in the defined order. I understand that the “Walk through activities” implementation accessible by Meta+Tab navigates in the most recently used order so any defined order would not be useful there but with the pager it is useful. I have also filed bug #405035 asking for “Switch to next/previous activity” actions/shortcuts. Thus the ability to specify the order is indeed useful.
Comment 3 Christian Muehlhaeuser 2020-03-16 05:01:12 UTC 
I agree, having the option to manually sort activities would be nice. What I currently do is prefixing them with a number ("01 This", "02 That"), but that feels like somewhat of a dirty workaround.
Comment 4 Daryl Bennett 2025-09-10 02:18:38 UTC 
I have a notional working concept of this feature. It's nowhere near ready, but I felt it was maybe time to jot it down. 

https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-activities/-/merge_requests/64
https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kactivitymanagerd/-/merge_requests/91
https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/-/merge_requests/3185

The order is reflected in the applets and the KCM, but not the switcher. The order is able to be changed in the KCM currently using promote and demote buttons.
I intend to leave the natural sorting as a default, when the position is changed the manual order will take precedence.