Bug 503767

Summary: Cannot create activity while editing other configuration in systemsettings
Product: [Applications] systemsettings Reporter: Alexander Potashev <aspotashev>
Component: kcm_activitiesAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE    
Severity: wishlist CC: ivan.cukic, kdedev
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: 6.3.4   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Fedora RPMs   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Alexander Potashev 2025-05-04 17:39:46 UTC
SUMMARY
Cannot create activity while editing other configuration in systemsettings.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Open systemsettings to edit keyboard shortcuts.
2. Make a change to keyboard shortcuts, but don't save it.
3. Press Meta+Q to open activity switcher.
4. In the activity switcher, click "Create activity..."

OBSERVED RESULT
systemsettings forces me to make a decision on keyboard shortcut editing (e.g. I have to either apply or discard, or cancel) before I can create an activity.

EXPECTED RESULT
An activity can be created immediately, or a new dialog should be open to create an activity.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Fedora Linux 41
KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.13.0
Qt Version: 6.8.2
Kernel Version: 6.13.11-200.fc41.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz
Memory: 15.4 ГиБ of RAM
Graphics Processor 1: Intel® HD Graphics 530
Graphics Processor 2: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Comment 1 TraceyC 2025-06-19 19:53:15 UTC
Thanks for the report. I verified this behavior on git-master and it looks intentional
This happens any time you have unsaved changes in one settings page and try to navigate to another setting page.

There may be complications in allowing changes to one settings module while there are other changes in another module.
Would it be enough to discard or save your changes to the shortcut (for example) before making other settings changes?
If there is a real need for this, can you please describe the use case?

Thanks.
Comment 2 Bug Janitor Service 2025-07-04 03:47:37 UTC
🐛🧹 ⚠️ This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least 15 days. Please provide the requested information, then set the bug status to REPORTED. If there is no change for at least 30 days, it will be automatically closed as RESOLVED WORKSFORME.

For more information about our bug triaging procedures, please read https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging.

Thank you for helping us make KDE software even better for everyone!
Comment 3 Bug Janitor Service 2025-07-20 03:47:17 UTC
🐛🧹 This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least 30 days. Closing as RESOLVED WORKSFORME.
Comment 4 Alexander Potashev 2025-08-31 12:38:41 UTC
> Would it be enough to discard or save your changes to the shortcut (for example) before making other settings changes?

Ideally, this shouldn't be required because it interrupts my workflow. One of the settings changes may be more urgent than another, for example I can imagine doing something urgently in a new activity and not wanting to spend time on finalizing shortcut settings changes that are non-urgent.

There's also the aspect of human context switching which is expensive: If Plasma asks me about shortcuts,
* I need to stop thinking about activities and start thinking about shortcuts
* Once I'm done reviewing the shortcuts, I need to start thinking about activities and recall what I wanted to do with activities. There was probably a chain (rabbit hole) of things I was doing as "dependencies" of the original goal, creating an activity being one of them. Having to discard/save shortcuts increases the depth of the rabbit hole by one.

Of course I can strictly sequence every configuration change, but that requires additional effort / brainpower / time, and may be inappropriate in situations where there's urgency.

Filed https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=508972 which would fix the current issue. Although the current issue can be fixed without https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=508972 by providing a separate UI to an create activity that doesn't involve running System Settings.
Comment 5 TraceyC 2025-09-02 16:17:46 UTC
Thanks for the context.

I'm going to close this out in favor of bug 508972, which captures the overall need better, in my opinion. There's no need to have two reports open to address the same thing.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 508972 ***
Comment 6 Alexander Potashev 2025-09-28 18:05:32 UTC
Like suggested in https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=508972#c3, a workaround is "kcmshell6 kcm_activities".