Bug 484076

Summary:	Activity and Virtual Desktop do not switch on Window Activation
Product:	[Plasma] kwin	Reporter:	Dominik Kummer <admin>
Component:	activities	Assignee:	Dominik Kummer <admin>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	normal	CC:	goo, oded
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	6.1.5
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Arch Linux
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Dominik Kummer 2024-03-20 14:56:03 UTC

SUMMARY
***
Since my latest update to Plasma 6 my Activities and Virtual Desktops do not switch simultanously anymore when I activate a certain Application via Shortcut. Now I have to press the shortcut twice: first Activity switches, second Virtual Desktop switches.
***

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Add at least two Activities and two Virtual Desktops
2. Assign two different keyboard shortcuts to two different Applications via Window Rules
3. Force each Application to be located on different Activity and different Virtual Desktop via Window Rules
4. Add a Panel with Activity Pager and Virtual Desktop Pager to monitor the switching behavior
5. Use the defined shortcuts to activate each Application alternately

OBSERVED RESULT
As the first shortcut is pressed the Activity switches, but Virtual Desktop remains. A second press on the same shortcut is needed to finally switch the Virtual Desktop where the target Application is located. Using another shortcut to activate a second Application on another Virtual Desktop and another Activity shows the same behavior.

EXPECTED RESULT
As a shortcut to activiate a Window is pressed, Activity AND Virtual Desktop shall switch at the same time to make the target Application visible instantly.

Comment 1 Dominik Kummer 2024-05-02 13:53:42 UTC

The relevant settings are at Window Management -> Window Behavior -> Advanced -> Virtual Desktop behavior

May be there should be a similar setting for "Activity behavior"

Comment 2 Dominik Kummer 2024-09-10 10:40:12 UTC

Now switching Virtual Desktop and Activity on Window Activation does not work at all. Which is fatal for usability reasons.

Comment 3 Dominik Kummer 2024-11-11 10:05:20 UTC

Can anyone confirm this? This bug grinds my gears since about a year or so.

Comment 4 goo 2024-11-24 20:45:30 UTC

(In reply to Dominik Kummer from comment #3)
> Can anyone confirm this? This bug grinds my gears since about a year or so.

I confirm the bug. I can't say for sure if it first appeared since the inception of Plasma 6 or if it is a regression introduced in Plasma 6.1.
Anyhow I'm a bit surprised that no one is taking care of it yet as the bug can be triggered fairly easy on desktops with multiple activities.

Comment 5 Dominik Kummer 2024-11-25 13:09:19 UTC

I am glad its not my misconfigured system though! Probably not many users enjoy the (currently non-working) benefits of activities, virtual desktops and application activation shortcuts.

Comment 6 goo 2024-11-25 15:17:48 UTC

(In reply to Dominik Kummer from comment #5)
> I am glad its not my misconfigured system though! Probably not many users
> enjoy the (currently non-working) benefits of activities, virtual desktops
> and application activation shortcuts.

Unfortunately activities are a second class citizen. They work at least but you have to take into account that regressions like this one will continue to come up if developers are a few and don't have enough interest in them. It's a pity because I make much use of them even if their implementation is somewhat lacking some features.

Comment 7 Dominik Kummer 2024-11-25 21:06:18 UTC

which features? give me a reason to finally compile plasma and apply for a merge request. maybe I should just burn my unpaid bills and focus on modern c++! :-D

Comment 8 Oded Arbel 2025-01-17 09:50:43 UTC

I wonder how much is this issue related to bug #427579 ?

I can verify that bug was indeed fixed in Plasma 6.3 beta, though from my testing (which is not good, see below) this issue is still a problem. I also verified that the same problematic behavior happens when using an application launcher keyboard shortcut to launch "Single window" application where the application is already running - the shortcut launches the application, which is supposed to switch to the running application window, but if that window is on another activity then first the activity changes and you have to launch it again to switch to the VD.

Comment 9 Dominik Kummer 2025-06-24 09:55:57 UTC

The migration to wayland fixed the issue for me.