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.
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 use to split personal and work stuff.
Mostly just change desktop wallpaper, have different pinned apps, and have some apps forced to start on specific activity using kwin rules.
And I sometimes also on top of that use workspaces, for additional split if different set of work/personal activities like switching between projects or leaving chat on one and IDE on another.
So it’s almost like a simple 2x2 workspace grid but with additional window/taskbar rules.
I have one for when I’m doing a presentation that customised for zero interruptions. The other is for everything else.
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”.