In the top right corner of a standard KDE/Kubuntu installation you'll see this:
But seriously, I seem to be unable to understand what those "activities" are and what it would enable me to profit from. It just pops up like an "add widget" screen with just four options:
- New Activity – default plasma widgets desktop – is this a bug that it's called like that?
- Search and Launch – sort of over-spacious netbook interface?
- Photos Activity – I don't have any pictures local on my machine, useless for me.
- Desktop Icons – traditional style desktop-icons-only
Choosing one of those options seems to create a completely new desktop "plasma". Then why is this called Activity? Am I missing something?
Is this is nifty feature I've been missing on for a few years now or is this not that exciting? How do I use this as it's supposed to work?
Googling for what this is supposed to be give me all kind of vague descriptions like this one:
No feature defines the KDE 4 release series more than Activities. At the same time, no feature is so little understood — Fedora even has a package for removing the desktop toolkit, which provides mouse access to Activities.
But, when you take the time to learn about Activities, you'll find them a natural extension of the desktop metaphor that just might help you to work more efficiently.
Activities are a super-set of Virtual Desktops. They don't replace Virtual Desktops — in fact, each Activity can have its own set of Virtual Desktops if you choose. Instead, Activities are alternative desktops, each of which can have its own wallpaper, icons, and widgets.
Sorry, but after reading such a vague and impractical story I'm out. Can someone give me an overview of what I can do with it? I guess this is supposed to provide a way to separate private and business work, but then, how?
Best Answer
I had exactly the same issues and questions with "Activities" as you. I found the video Wicky posted to be instrumental in filling in gaps in my understanding of how Activities are suppose to improve upon traditional virtual desktops. The most important thing I took away from watching the video was that activities are just another type of virtual desktop that allow for more fine tuned control over your experience. Interesting examples of one or more features that could potentially be enabled in any activity are as follows:
Aside from power-settings, mouse clicks, and basic application restoration, I'm not sure any of these other features have yet been implemented. Indeed, my desire to figure this out came from someone else’s ask Ubuntu question where they were trying to write the app for language switching upon virtual desktop changes.
Overall I think the thing most holding back progress is a nice GUI tool to configure activities to execute commands or apps, and seems a likely next step.