Bug 460491 - Plasma 5.26: You cannot toggle anymore from VD 4 to VD1
Summary: Plasma 5.26: You cannot toggle anymore from VD 4 to VD1
Status: RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Alias: None
Product: kwin
Classification: Plasma
Component: effects-various (show other bugs)
Version: 5.26.0
Platform: Other Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: KWin default assignee
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2022-10-15 15:43 UTC by Maximilian Böhm
Modified: 2022-10-16 00:30 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Description Maximilian Böhm 2022-10-15 15:43:31 UTC
Plasma 5.26 has changed the toggling through virtual desktops. Before, and since the days of Plasma 4, you could toggle via mouse wheel or your preferred key combo though your desktops and at the end, it jumped back to desktop 1. Now, it will halt on the last. You cannot reach the first one, or the last one when you are at the first. For me, it’s uncomfortable. This new behavior seems to be fixed on the idea of a row of desktops but that’s not my mental model. After 15 years using Compiz and later Kwin on Plasma 4, my mental model is the Cube the Kwin devs removed a year ago but PROMISED to bring back (I have even offered to support the recreation with a bounty in this tracker, without responses). Now, with this fixed paradigm of a row of virtual desktops with a start and ending, the Cube paradigm is getting destroyed.
I often have an Amarok window open at the desktop left to my browser, which is desktop 4. Now, I cannot reach it with a single key press or mouse wheel turn. When I have more important work to do on other desktops at the right, the space becomes limited. Before, I could directly switch to desktop 4, now this doesn’t work anymore. Working with media creation like video editing windows, file management and galleries, Gimp, terminal windows, virtual machines and remote desktops is in the same way inconvenient and limiting now with this approach. Dragging a window on desktop 1 to the left to maneuver it to desktop 4 is also impossible now.
I somehow get that you try to mimic the macOS paradigm with the new Overview effect for light notebook usage but this shouldn’t consume established workflow paradigms for power users. At the least, this should be an option.

KDE Plasma: 5.26
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2022-10-16 00:30:33 UTC
In fact, this is a user-configurable option, and we flipped the default setting for Plasma 5.26; see https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/2643. The option lives in System Settings > Workspace Behavior > Virtual Desktops > "Navigation wraps around"

I know people hate it when we change defaults and it affects existing users and not just new installs, but unfortunately we don't have a great way of doing that right now.

You're welcome to change it back if you'd like.