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KDE Merges Per-Screen Virtual Desktops After 21 Years (www.phoronix.com)
submitted 1 month ago by monetaryabyss@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show to c/news@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show
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[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 0 points 1 month ago (4 children)

People with multiple displays are definitely going to be a minority. And not all of them will be using virtual desktops. And not all of those might have an issue with how they work now.

Yeah ... I'm one of those people who like the way they work now. I really hope that the current behavior will still be achievable in the new system.

When I switch virtual desktops, I want every screen to change. Each virtual desktop is a different project, and most of those projects are spread out over multiple screens. When I switch between projects, I want all of it to switch to that project. And if I want something to stay put while switching, well, that's what 'move to desktop --> all desktops' is for. (Honestly, I think most of the people clamoring for this new feature simply don't know how to use the 'show on all desktops' feature that already exists.)

I've got 6 screens and 8 virtual desktops. If I have to switch each screen's desktop individually, that's going to be a huge pain in the ass. I really really do hope they include a way to lock all screens together and make them all switch at the same time every time, just like the old behavior.

[–] TaterTot@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"VirtualDesktopManager now tracks the current virtual desktop separately for each output. By default it switches the desktop on all outputs together, but there is now an option to enable switching desktops separately for each output."

Good news, you can do nothing and keep your workflow!

But also, I've been clamoring for this feature, because I do have just one screen that I want to swap between multiple desktops and going through the effort of setting up "show on all desktops" for every window I open on every other screen is a pain in the ass.

Isn't choice great?

[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nice!

FYI, you can use KWin rules to automatically set window properties like "on all desktops" for certain application/window types if you want

[–] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is basically a terrible hack that would get annoying quickly

[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It depends on your workflow, but although KWin rules are not as robust as I would like they are still stable and reliable in my experience. They are getting more and more obsolete with newer Plasma versions - my main use-case is pre-positioning VST plugin windows and they should have fixed saving the window positions on Wayland recently for example - but it's still useful to me because I still want to remove the taskbar and set "skip application switcher". But if you need to set geometry or some options from the Alt-F3 menu automatically based on window class/title, it does its job.

[–] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

No I meant the specific usage of auto setting show on all workspaces on certain apps would be a terrible hack. It effectively collapses all secondary virtual desktop options on one display to one. It's a complicated way to effectively get virtual desktops only on the primary monitor or constantly fuck about with switching away from the always present apps on the secondary monitor. It's just a bad design.

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It’s a complicated way to effectively get virtual desktops only on the primary monitor or constantly fuck about with switching away from the always present apps on the secondary monitor.

Ah, but you're living in 2-monitor land.

Over here in 6-monitor land, it makes a lot more sense to do it that way.

Personally, I have a time-tracking spreadsheet on my 3rd monitor, as well as a hardware monitor and a timer on my 5th monitor. (The spreadsheet and timer are used for tracking my working hours, and the hardware monitor is just nice to have to keep an eye on things.) All of those are set to not show up in the taskbar or switcher, and to always be underneath other windows with window rules, as well as setting all of their precise positions. And they're set to always be shown on all virtual desktops, so they're always available in the background. In that way, those 3 apps function more like desktop widgets than actual apps. They can be covered by other things if I need the screen real estate (which is fairly rare with 6 monitors, but does occasionally happen), they're unobtrusive and don't clutter things too badly, but they're always there and available to use in the background because these three things are the three things I want to have available to me no matter which project I'm working on. I want everything on all my other screens to switch virtual desktops together, but I want those three apps to be on all desktops.

[–] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I really hope that the current behavior will still be achievable in the new system.

Well, you shouldn't have skipped the demo vid in the MR then. :)

It should be an optional toggle, and likely a behavior that's off by default.

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 0 points 1 month ago

Well, you shouldn’t have skipped the demo vid in the MR then. :)

Some of us ain't got the internet bandwidth to be watching videos frivolously.

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Yeah ... I'm one of those people who like the way they work now. I really hope that the current behavior will still be achievable in the new system.

This isn't Gnome! You don't need to worry.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago

By default it switches the desktop on all outputs together

[–] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Finally! The current implementation added recently was pretty disappointing, it just let you switch the desktop on the primary screen without affecting the others, but it worked by simply making windows on secondaries display on every virtual desktop. :/

I really missed proper virtual desktop per screen from tiling WMs...

[–] michaelmrose@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Did you just read the comments they are announcing the version you find disappointing which is indeed disappointing. KDE will now be even better than gnome but still worse than every tiling wm since 2009