So Plasma has Activities, which is something I noticed a while back. I haven’t really found any use for it other than maybe having a different desktop layout so I was wondering what everyone else used it for.
No shade to the people who added it, just curious.
For nothing. Absolutely nothing.
If they could be used to switch users or in any other way actually containerize desktop sessions, they could be useful for something.
I’d also go for “completely disabled”.
I use them instead of virtual desktops - each with a specific hotkey, and some with customized pinned apps.
I have …
General: Email, shopping, etc.
Gaming
Media
Two Work activities - a primary, and a secondary for when I need to compartmentalize different ongoing tasks
Other - for anything transitory that doesn’t fit in the others.
I realize this could largely be done with virtual desktops, though I don’t think you can have a different pinned app loadout for each?
The downside to setting things up this way is when I restart my computer, it seems to randomly decide which browser windows go in each activity. Also, with apps that I use across them (like Notion), I have to go hunting for which activity it opened in. To get around the issue of splitting Firefox across different profiles, I just use two browsers. Firefox for work, and Firedragon for personal stuff. They share the same external password manager, so it’s pretty seamless.
I have one for when I’m doing a presentation that customised for zero interruptions. The other is for everything else.
I switch between Main, Recording, and Gaming. Apart from backgrounds I have some apps specifically visible in that Activity, and also have a filtered desktop folder for each (each Activity has files that are only relevant to that activity). I did a video about my switching at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq-7KEeH7_U and how it differs from virtual desktops.
In the past I used it together with KTimeTracker. It’s a solution, of the many available… Sadly, none was really optimal IMHO
Recording meetings with other people, messing up with desktop layouts and whatnot.
But they haven’t been pushed at all lately, and there were deprecation talks in the KDE forums.
