Activities are perfect way for managing different workflows and customizing the environment for that. However it would be great to have the possibility of configuring different panel for different activities; e.g. the programs pinned to the panel, or the favorite programs on application menu can be quite different for workflows, which is not possible at the moment.
Thanks for the comment > or the favorite programs on application menu can be quite different for workflows, which is not possible at the moment. This now exists in 5.9, integrated into the launcher itself. If you have any other specific ideas of activity specific configurations within an applet, we can look into that on a case-by-case basis. Having completely different panel configurations I think would just be too complicated to show in the UI, and involve the user doing a lot of duplicate reconfiguring for global actions that exist above activities.
(In reply to David Edmundson from comment #1) > Thanks for the comment > > > or the favorite programs on application menu can be quite different for workflows, which is not possible at the moment. > > This now exists in 5.9, integrated into the launcher itself. > If you have any other specific ideas of activity specific configurations > within an applet, we can look into that on a case-by-case basis. > Hi David. What do you think about the notifications area be configurable for different panels? In bug #292094 there are some comments and requests about it In my case, I would like to have an "activity without distractions" - maybe because I am reading something or doing some presentation. So, I would like to remove the notifications area from the panel of a specific activity, but remain it in the panel of another activity. A workaround for it could be put a configuration option or button to turn on/off all the notifications in notification area, but the solution using activity would be more elegant. :) Cheers David.
(In reply to David Edmundson from comment #1) > Thanks for the comment > > > or the favorite programs on application menu can be quite different for workflows, which is not possible at the moment. > > This now exists in 5.9, integrated into the launcher itself. > If you have any other specific ideas of activity specific configurations > within an applet, we can look into that on a case-by-case basis. > > Having completely different panel configurations I think would just be too > complicated to show in the UI, and involve the user doing a lot of duplicate > reconfiguring for global actions that exist above activities. I agree, that configuration would be harder, so there is a case to be made, that by default panels are synced between activities. Still, there are cases, where you want completely different layouts of your panels between activities. If you have a separate activity for drawing, you may want to have a unity like task switcher on the side of your desktop. This would require a bigger panel on a different edge of the screen. While programming this may be wasted space, so you'd switch to a standard windows-like layout. Maybe you'd even want to set the task switcher to autohide, which would be annoying to activate with a graphics tablet, but with a mouse it is much easier. This can't be done with an automatic transition based on input devices present like with a virtual keyboard as I don't usually disconnect my graphics tablet when I'm not using it. The panel layout I need simply depends on the activity I'm doing. There are also other possible use cases. You may not want to see notifications as well as the current time when you are studying. You may want a different application launcher when you are playing games and you may want to have your panels on different screens while editing a video. Configuring your activities like that may be some work, but at the same time activities would provide much more value as you could tailor each activity to exactly one workflow instead of having to compromise.
Why is this "RESOLVED WONTFIX"??? That's maddening. This is a very important feature and its absence is one of the major reasons why activities are currently not useful or appealing to many plasma users. > Having completely different panel configurations I think would just be too > complicated to show in the UI, and involve the user doing a lot of duplicate > reconfiguring for global actions that exist above activities. This comment doesn't make any sense. It's so easy to get aronud that. Here's a simple solution: have synchronized panels by DEFAULT; and an option (as in OPTIONAL) in the settings to configure per-activity panels - for the power user who does want to tweak these things, hard work or not. Alternative solution: when creating a new activity have panels from the default activity CLONED (so they're the same but not synchronized); they can then be further tweaked if the user wants to but if they're not nobody will notice any difference between panels on different activities.