Hi @Merritt
Would you be willing to try to look into this ? I think your experience would make this a bit easier…
Maybe other devs can help as well and point you in the right direction ?
Would love to hear your thoughts about this…
Thanks
Manux
I looked into the situation, I’ve found a few things…
- There are many interrelated parts
- Changes will span several repos/systems (virtual desktops, windowing, scripting, etc)
- There will almost certainly be further code that needs to be adapted than what has already been identified
- A decent portion of the code is complex and/or not well documented (meaning slower and more difficult to work with)
- A proposal that includes this feature was already put forth by @Zamundaaa last year. I checked, and they said they were interested in at least looking into it more.
So if @Zamundaaa decides not to go ahead with implementation - or just would like assistance - I will be happy to give it some work at that point.
Either way, it is a complex task and will definitely take some time and a lot of work. It is obvious there is some serious motivation from you all to see this feature, so I am sure we’ll find our way there! 
4 Likes
I’d also like to pledge 100 euros for this request. Together with the lack of good autotiling support, these are the only reasons I’m not using Plasma full-time.
5 Likes
+100€ via Paypal from me.
This is a feature I have wanted for years.
(P. S. maybe there needs to be a better platform to manage bug/feature bounties, it’s already getting kind of chaotic to find out who pledges how much and what the total sum is. Looks like we’re now at about ~1500€ in total which is substantial)
6 Likes
I would pledge $1000 EUR to start. I have wanted a desktop to have this feature again since I enjoyed it waaay back in Enlightement DR17. I want to switch from GNOME to KDE because KDE’s Wayland story seems healthier to me (in terms of implementing more extensions via the community, being able to survive compositor crashes/restarts without losing work, etc) but I just can’t work with the way virtual desktops are implemented now with multiple monitors.
Maybe this can be turned into a long-running crowdfunding campaign somewhere?
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This bug is really annoying. I’ll pledge $100 USD to get this fixed.
Please.
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Where can we donate? I’d like this issue to be fixed, even it it only works on Wayland.
We finally can used true mixed refresh rates thanks to Wayland. Now, we just need to be able to use virtual desktops better.
I don’t mind if Activities stay tied to all screens
I would also donate as long as the current behavior stays as an option. Current behavior is what made me settle for KDE after Unity stopped being developed/supported.
But I can see the benefit of having a choice to draw more users to KDE, and that compels me to donate.
Also, IMO, this seems to be a feature request, not a bug.
As far as I know, there is currently no robust/healthy/trusted platform for handling such crowdfunding/bounties for FOSS projects. If there does exist such a project and I just don’t know about it, having it set up for KDE use would be great.
As a small update, I am looking into this project. Between the complexity of the work and my other obligations it is slow going, and no promises yet that it will happen - but I am working on it.
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I’m willing to pledge $20 dollars to this, as this would be really useful in my coding workflow.
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I will gladly pledge $250 USD to this. KDE’s workspace management is so close to being perfect and IMO this is the one thing holding it back.
3 Likes
I would donate $500 for:
- Per monitor virtual desktops
- The ability to pin virtual desktops to a specific monitor (if the monitor doesn’t exist then it should be assigned to another)
- Window rule support to force a window to open on a particular virtual desktop
- The implementation shouldn’t significantly break the recently revived Khronkite kwin script
- Some assurance these changes will persist beyond Plasma 6
These features are what’s needed for us i3/sway/hyprland refugees.
4 Likes
This already exists - I use it all the time.
I think asking KDE devs to do a major change without impacting a hacky 3rd party script is a very big ask, and IMO is not reasonable. Also - no one can guarantee how anything like that will be maintained for the very long term - Plasma 5 lasted 10 years. If you get that feature for 10 years - this is quite significant and better than you get with most software products.
Generally, regarding one-off bounties - I recommend reading Nate’s blog post about the Plasma 6 donation nag ( link ).
3 Likes
Coming from Enlightenment 17 which has that feature, it really missing.
I would pledge at least 50€ for it, certainly more (but I can’t promise more right now).
There’s a lot of UX things that need to be ironned out in such a feature.
My usage was :
- the two screens have their own independent virtual desktops settings. I can switch virtual desktop on screen 1 and that does change what is on screen 2. Typically, I have a video / chat that want to always keep visible on one screen. Iirc, all screens have the same number of virtual desktop (but it would be better if that limitation was lifted on KDE, with the possibility to set a default number for new unknown screen)
- I can move windows freely from one screen to the other, as it is possible today in KDE. The Window move from the current virtual desktop on screen 1 to what is the current virtual desktop on screen 2.
Note that in e17, screens have priority and are strictly ordered, so there is always a “main” screen.
The priority is set by the user, so that you can set an external work monitor with more priority than the laptop one, but still have “unknown” monitor with a even lower priority for presentation for ex. I think it’s somehow similar on KDE.
Now the complicated part that will likely need try & feedback :
Plugging / unplugging monitor :
- when a desktop is unplugged, windows move to the remaining main screen.
- if the same monitor is plugged back, windows move back to their respective virtual
- if it’s an other monitor that is plugged, windows remain on the main screen and the user have to drag them on virtual screens
Switch desktop on mouse edge :
I like to have switch desktop when mouse or dragging windows on edge. Combined with independent virtual desktops and the fact that you can drag windows from on monitor to the other, it means that there’s always one edge that is not used for switching vd. It was OK with me, but I understand it can be surprising.
I’d love to see this as it is the one thing that is stopping me from using KDE as my primary desktop. Would happily put $500 in the pot to see this a part of KDE.
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I would also be willing to put in 100€ for this feature.
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I throw in another 100€ into the feature request bounty.
Also I created a current balance, I try to keep it updated.
Current Bounty
| Who | Amount |
|---|---|
| Manux | 400€ |
| dblsaiko | 100€ |
| MrShinigamiDa | 30$ |
| chandi | 100€ |
| SpinningVinyl | 50€ |
| vod3 | 100€ |
| sirmrgentleman | 40$ |
| ngompa | 200$ |
| MykolaSuprun | 100€ |
| firlaev-hans | 100€ |
| greatquux | 1000€ |
| wayoftheNLE | 100$ |
| Trinsdar | 20$ |
| UverageCakeSlice | 250$ |
| Ramblurr | 500$ |
| fanf42 | >=50€ |
| Allanj | 500$ |
| FlyingSock | 100$ |
| holzingk | 100€ |
| Total | >=2100€ + 1740$ |
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I’ll add 500EUR
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