Virtual Desktops - Don't Know How I Got By Without Um... – 274 days old

[ZemaTalon]

I never used to make a lot of use of virtual desktops in any significant way. But when I started doing work with a Linux machine it didn't take long to find out how useful they really are. I have my main work screens on two physical screens, and spread out on various virtual desktops, I have open: some temporary training and educational powerpoints, cheat-sheets and other routinely referenced material, email client, streaming video feed to keep me entertained as I work, the forum so I can keep tabs on you guys, websites with various things I've had to look up, and I'll probably find yet more uses. I can easily see in the Workspace Switcher where everything is and instantly switch over to anything I need to look at. For anyone who hasn't messed with them yet but wants to be really productive on their machine, I highly recommend them

[Grogan]

When I first started using Linux, I resisted them at first. So used to Windows was I, that I couldn't see myself ever wanting multiple workspaces. I started to make use of them, then I got this bright idea while using AfterStep, to make the workspace layout a 4x4 square, which gave me 16 interconnected desktops that I could slide around with my mouse pointer or click the desired square on the pager (what we are now calling a workspace switcher). By then I was used to setting up my main apps, so they would all be running full screen on their own desktop. (The same one every time, so I always knew where to move). I didn't use all 16 of them, but it was great for productivity the way that square allowed me to set up my work flow and if I wanted to open something else, I would just slide down or diagonally and use another workspace. Unfortunately, in a newer version of AfterStep, they ruined things such that my way was no longer viable. Things were too "sticky" and I couldn't get program windows where I wanted them etc.

I used the old 1.8.10 version of Afterstep for quite a while, but I think it was then that I started to use XFCE more and more and AfterStep less. I didn't have a square, but it at least had the "focus follows mouse" and "wrap workspaces at screen edge" behaviour that I desired, and workspaces 1 and 8 are connected in either direction, which aids movement. I now use 8 workspaces in a row, and I can move between them quite quickly. Similarly, my browser goes on the first one, email on the second 3 to 7 are vacant for whatever I want. Workspace 7 is usually for remote terminal sessions and Workspace 8 is for GKrellm and other miscellaneous, small program windows.

I find Windows crippled and confining. I did use Microsoft's virtual desktop power toy addon for Windows XP back in those days but it was poorly implemented. Slow to switch, and CPU intensive. It was OK. When I got to Vista, I found stuff but it was annoying and sometimes bad things would happen. I didn't really care that much because I only use Windows for games, and that's full screen, so 90% of the time I'm in Windows I don't have to look at it, or use it. I just won't do work in Windows, it's too stupid. Minimizing and maximizing programs (or having a bunch of them up and having to change focus) sucks, when you are used to plastering them over workspaces instead.

[Dark Angel]

I only run two workspaces but then each one is spread across two monitors. When I'm on this machine I often have multiple documents open referring back and forth between them and this feels like having multiple books open on the desk ... kind of. I also tend to have my online lectures running in one monitor while I have my browser open in another, checking things or playing with whatever I'm studying. Other times I'll have one double-desktop workspace set up for uni and the other running my forums, maybe a kernel/browser/app compile and switch back and forth as my attention span runs out. Obviously I don't use it near as much as G, but I'd still miss it.

[Bad Haircut]

I'll say this, KDE Activities take virtual desktops and tasking to a whole new level. It's what Nepomuk and the semantic desktop is all about really, like you can flick between quite complex open activities on a single virtual desktop. Extremely powerful shit if you were to utilise it.

[Alakazam]

Even I use multiple DT's and I don't have any work to do, it's just very convenient when I'm surfing around and on here.

[ZemaTalon]

I'm using four but like DA, I'm using two monitors so it's more like 8. But yeah it's a different way of 'looking' at things and broadens your horizons beyond the single desktop mentality we've all been trained to think in terms of. When I was on my phone flipping between different screens I realized it was kind of a similar concept, except for only being able to use those diff phone screens to store icons. I'll have to play around with KDE Activities BH - that's yet something else I never took the time to explore fully

[Bad Haircut]

It's worth going back over and having a recap: http://hanschen.org/2011/02/04/activ...e-in-workflow/ and things have come on a lot since then.

[Alakazam]

That's a good explanation BH, thanks for the link.

[Grogan]

That's different, but it doesn't appeal to me in any way. "Pretend virtual desktops don't exist" and use some conceptual bullshit instead and get so stupid and lazy that I don't even know the names and locations of my files anymore, such that I need to index data to be able to find and work with them? This is what's wrong with OS design today. Their concepts are not my concepts. These concepts are absurd to me.

Why would I not want my other apps while I'm doing $task? Why would I want to start a new grouping of apps/environment/widgets just because I want to do something else? Why would I be so predictable that I would always want the same groupings of apps in my "report writing" activity/session? That's essentially what this is about.

The post is written by a person who admittedly never made use of virtual desktops. Oh those poor, confused new users who have never heard of virtual desktops before and don't know what a workspace switcher square is. This concept will be so much better?

His example of the music player doesn't illustrate anything, because you can hear it no matter which virtual desktop you are working on (you'll have a volume control on every desktop too) and the player itself can be moved to any desktop at any time, very easily, without interrupting playback or anything if you suddenly decide you want it next to something else. Mind you, KDE does lack a graphical pager in their workspace switcher like XFCE and AfterStep has. I can drag apps from one workspace switcher square to another without leaving my current workspace.

[Bad Haircut]

That's different, but it doesn't appeal to me in any way. "Pretend virtual desktops don't exist" and use some conceptual bullshit instead and get so stupid and lazy that I don't even know the names and locations of my files anymore, such that I need to index data to be able to find and work with them? This is what's wrong with OS design today. Their concepts are not my concepts. These concepts are absurd to me.

Yeah but why would you give a crap provided the data you're working on in the apps you're working in, in the Activity you are in, is stored and saved to accessible / retrievable file.

Why would I not want my other apps while I'm doing $task? Why would I want to start a new grouping of apps/environment/widgets just because I want to do something else?

You can just add and subtract whatever you like on the fly - close the activity and it's saved. Reopen the Activity and proceed how you like, and so on. Get bored working within one Activity, open another, etc. Don't like it using resources? Kill it, so it doesn't.

Why would I be so predictable that I would always want the same groupings of apps in my "report writing" activity/session?

Creatures of habit, most people are habitual including what they do on a computer. And as above, you can edit an activity into whatever you want on the fly. But if you do certain office type work, and I mean work as in boring repetitive tasks, then setting up that activity a certain way is an obvious thing to want to do.

The post is written by a person who admittedly never made use of virtual desktops. Oh those poor, confused new users who have never heard of virtual desktops before and don't know what a workspace switcher square is. This concept will be so much better?

Well he goes on to say which and what is appropriate for him at any given time and why. But what he's saying is if you can set up six Activities set up a certain way and remain as you left them when closed, on one virtual desktop and sit and flick between those clearly marked Activities, it could be more preferable to some than using six virtual desktops, and I kind of agree with him for the basics.

Mind you, KDE does lack a graphical pager in their workspace switcher like XFCE and AfterStep has. I can drag apps from one workspace switcher square to another without leaving my current workspace.

Doesn't really matter using Activities as outlined but you can just right click on an app menu bar and send it to another workspace. And if I remember right , there's more than one pager widget available. Point is with KDE you can pick and choose whatever you want. Run a combination of traditional desktop, virtual desktop set up, and Activities if you like. Or just stick to one.

Two recurring themes come up at KDE regarding all this. 1) resources / overhead used to achieve all this 2) tighter more effective control over the processes used to achieve all this, and the ability for end users to not only turn them off individually easily, but have them only turned on and used as and when you use them. KDE 5.0 + should be interesting.

[Grogan]

I give a crap, because I don't want indexers gyrating and maintaining databases that I would never trust to be current or correct when I need them anyway. (I don't let Windows do that either). I don't need that, I don't want that, and I don't want others to be retards that have no concept of working with files and folders. It is one of the fundamental concepts of computing that I insist on being learned at the beginning. I will not teach anyone anything until they learn to work with files. I don't care what they want to pay me... you can't learn to "burn disks" (for example) unless you can browse for your files. You can't learn to "get music and movie downloads" unless you can learn to organize files and folders. ("I downloaded it, but where'd it go?!?!? This always happens! I paid you!")

The rest of it is fine with me, as long as I can turn it off completely. It is more the concept vs. virtual desktops that I am objecting to. I won't be using KDE anyway except for a novelty once in a while. The main reason I even have it is just for a few apps that I run outside of KDE. I'm too lazy to upgrade it, because the apps I use still do what I want them to. While I have tried it briefly in other distros, I probably won't get a KDE newer than the 4.5.1 that I have until next time I start over with a new Slackware base. I actually wouldn't mind doing a new KDE build, but KDE's dependencies are ridiculous. It's not like my current system would be fine for KDE 4.9.

As for the pager... the point is I don't need to go to the app titlebar (likely on another workspace) to move it. I can simply drag its outline from one pager square to another, including the one I'm on. But KDE has never had one of those pagers, it was just an additional observation.

[Bad Haircut]

If you're savvy enough to set up a work flow pattern as an Activity on your own then you've moved passed the working with files and folders on a traditional desktop set up anyway. Nepomuk framework works and works well and like I said I'm not bothered provided the data I'm working on in an Activity 'session' is saved and retrievable if anything catastrophic happens. That was and is my only concern.

I've used Activities maybe a half dozen times for shitty boring repetitive office type work and it does aid you if you're stretching something out over a month or something, you can really see it's value. Then when you've finished just delete the whole Activity. I don't particularly see the point of going to the trouble of setting up an Activity for basic day to day stuff that you've been doing for a hundred years with your eyes shut on a traditional desktop set up. But I can see a legitimate practical place for Activities.

[Grogan]

I got off on a different tangent here about the Nepomuk crap, as it relates to search indexing. I lumped it all together. I have less of an issue with the Activities (I personally don't like that idea, but...) than the search indexing which I abhor quite nastily.

What those metadata search indexers are for, are so people can go to a search field and start typing stuff to find their files. I see people doing it as the primary method of navigation and it bugs me.

For example... a problem with Microsoft Word. I can't open my files. (So I've been told). I get there and I have no problem opening Word and stuff, so it's "OK, show me what you are trying to do". I then see them going to the Windows Search field and starting to type to find their files and they are not coming up. "See? I can't open my file anymore". The file is of course there, in My Documents, but even THAT nannying approach to file management has been subverted because that's the way they were shown.

Yes, it's really that stupid. Of course a Linux user is likely to be more savvy than that, but it's a whole trend I'm bucking here.

[Dark Angel]

The only time I ever use one of those search fields is if I discover that the file I want isn't where I bloody well know it SHOULD be and some fucktard (usually me, of course, except when it's the other me. That prick causes nothing but trouble) has let it save somewhere stupid. Other than that I just plain won't use it as it gains me nothing. The "recent documents" menu comes in handy at times, but even then I tend to open things from the folder.

[Grogan]

That's what a file search is for, the times when you've lost track of something. You don't need indexing for that either, a brute force search still works and doesn't have ongoing overhead.

Personally I use a program in Windows called locate32. I carry it with me in my arsenal of tools because Windows Search is bollocks. It relies on indexes, but by default you just update them manually before you use the program. It takes seconds because it's only indexing names. After that the search is instantaneous and it displays results in a meaningful way (in columns, and one of the fields prominently shows the full path to the file). In Linux I just use the find command for a sure fire, brute force search. It's no big deal, because you usually know where to start the search. (e.g. find /home/grogan -name 'bigtits*.jpg' )