Activities vs. virtual desktops

[Clay Weber]

On Sunday, April 29, 2012 05:37:09 PM Georgi Kourtev wrote:
> Hi all.  Can anyone explain me what is the difference between the
> 'Activities' and 'virtual desktops'?  It seems quite the same for me and
> difficult to understand what is the value of using one against the other.
> Thanks. gk


Activities I find hard to describe, really.
Basically they are a group of , well, activities based more on widget 
selection, as you can have different widgets, backgrounds on each.

Then each Activity can have multiple "classic" virtual desktops.

An activity is basically a virtual desktop on a bit of steroids, if   you 
will. In KDE 4.8, power management is even integrated so that you can tailor 
screen power management based on them. 

I do not use virtual desktops myself, but do use activities. I created one 
with a plain, clean desktop. I have Calligra Words open there, and when I 
switch to my main desktop and turn off the Writer Mode activity, it saves what 
applications I have on it so they open when I turn it back on. I have used 
another one with a bunch of plasma widgets just for showing off :D.

They are not 100% perfect for me - I'd like an option to hide, customize or 
turn off the bottom panel/taskbar on an individual activity for a distraction 
and notification-free screen, for example. And they can be resource suckers for 
older systems, but that is offset by being able to turn them off and on as 
needed.

Of course, there is nothing keeping one from using the classic virtual desktop 
system.

-- 
Clay Weber
http://kubuntuforums.net