Bug 447538

Summary:	On Wayland, Kate doesn't prefer opening files in an instance on the current virtual desktop
Product:	[Frameworks and Libraries] kwayland-integration	Reporter:	Ahmad Samir <a.samirh78>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	REPORTED ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	christoph, ehilton2931, kde, nicolas.fella, vlad.zahorodnii, xaver.hugl
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Ahmad Samir 2021-12-26 13:03:30 UTC

Basically the code uses KWindowSystem::currentDesktop()[1] to check which virtual desktop you're on, and if there is a Kate instance running there already open the file in it, and if there isn't it starts a new instance then open the file with it.

The issue is that on Wayland currentDesktop() always returns 0, so the logic doesn't work, opening a file with Kate could end up opening that file on an instance that's already running on a different virtual desktop.

[1]https://invent.kde.org/utilities/kate/-/blob/master/kate/main.cpp#L407

Comment 1 Christoph Cullmann 2022-01-08 18:59:02 UTC

I would consider this more an issue of the kwayland-integration.
Or is there some replacement function for this?

Comment 2 Ahmad Samir 2022-01-08 19:12:25 UTC

The fix will probably have to be somewhere in kwayland*, then we can use it in Kate.

Comment 3 Nicolas Fella 2022-12-21 12:25:50 UTC

As of right now upstream Wayland has no concept of virtual desktops. That means that the existing virtual desktops in e.g. Plasma are completely compositor-defined and applications generally have no information about what desktop they are on. 

There may or may no come a Wayland protocol that allows this in the future, but as of right now this part of KWindowSystem can't reasonably be implemented on Wayland.

That's why https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/kwindowsystem/-/merge_requests/72 renames it to make this explicit

Comment 4 Ahmad Samir 2024-03-05 10:27:25 UTC

I don't know much about Wayland; so here is an observation, assuming there is a kate instance on the current virtual desktop, and focus stealing prevention is set to none:
- Ctrl+Clicking in konsole opens the file in that kate instance and activates the window
- From that konsole window, using `kate /path/to/some/file`, the file is opened in kate, but the window isn't activated, and the task manager highlights the kate window as requesting attention

Comment 5 Evan Hilton 2025-12-15 19:11:19 UTC

I've created a KWin script that mitigates this bug. It's not a complete fix as it requires that a Kate instance already be open on the workspace in question, but as long as an instance already exists files will open on the same workspace. I should also note that it works by giving Kate focus on workspace switch, so if you rely on a specific window gaining focus on workspace switch this may not work well for you.

You can find it here: https://github.com/ehilton2931/kate-autofocus. I may get around to uploading it to the KDE store eventually, but there's some additional functionality for multi-monitor setups that I want to add first.

Even with this mitigation, I do hope that this bug will be properly fixed before the X11 session is dropped. This is a key part of my workflow and while the script does mean this bug is no longer a showstopper for me, the need for a preexisting Kate instance is still annoying.