Dragging virtual desktops should only move the windows, not the actual virtual desktop

Brainstorm
1

When in grid overview, one can drag the virtual desktops around, which is a nice shorthand for moving all windows inside that virtual desktop to another one — or so I thought. It actually moves the actual virtual desktop. So if I set up a grid of named virtual desktops such as

Alpha 0, Alpha 1, Alpha 2
Beta 0, Beta 1, Beta 2
Gamma 0, Gamma 1, Gamma 2

and then drag “Beta 0” to “Alpha 1”, then it reorders the virtual desktops and the naming doesn’t make sense anymore:

Alpha 0, Beta 0, Alpha 2
Alpha 1, Beta 1, Beta 2
Gamma 0, Gamma 1, Gamma 2

I think the default behavior should be that all virtual desktops are fixed in place, and one can only move the windows, not the desktops themselves.

I believe this was also the intended design, since in KDE System Settings/Window Management/Virtual Desktops, there is no functionality to drag the virtual desktops around, only rename and delete them.

1 Like
2

I agree with this cause for me on first set up of Plasma I do believe it would be faster to drag an open item from the desktop it’s on to another one instead of having to rightclick its title bar and selecet from a menu which desktop(s) I want it on.

3

So when dragging the desktop, you’re suggesting that the names stay fixed to the locations, but the CONTENTS are swapped when they’re dragged and dropped?

That sounds like a solution. I do like that I can drag the entire contents that way - and the actual names don’t really interest me too much, as I always go to Grid to work with them.

I notice that WHATEVER the names are, in the window menu (with my 2x2 grid) the position in the menu is fixed, only the contents and the names are moved…

So it’s not an issue here.

4

The fastest for me is to grab CtrlShiftMeta→↑←↓ because that drags the current window to the next desktops in whichever direction I’m going.

Current issues that I find mildly annoying:

I have a ‘Media’ activity and my ‘Main’ activity. It’s very easy to start up Plex playing some TV in the corner whilst doing stuff.

If I leave my browser and move to the next desktop, I can have Plex pinned to all desktops (roll the mousewheel over the titlebar also puts it on top) but there’s no similar method for Activities.

So there is lots of work to do in working out the benefits of Activities and adding the benefits of desktops.

I’d argue that Activites are a better tool, but the desktop is better set up to manage Desktops… and those shortcuts are only really avaialble through the window menu (i.e. I can set Plex to START on Media, but then I have to use the MENU to make it appear on ALL activities or another one…).

The bonus with Activities, obviously, is that they can have different settings (unlike Desktops…).

5

Yes, exactly. That would make sense, I think.

2 Likes
6

this feature of Grid View is quite powerful if it does as the UX indicates… and it does on Plasma 5.

when i enter Grid View i see an array of virtual desktops and what windows are open on each one.

if i click on an individual window and drag it, then it moves that window to the other virtual desktop… as one would expect.

if i click on the desktop background and drag it, then it SHOWS me the same animation of moving ALL the windows at once to the other virtual desktop.

so when i have several windows open on desktop “1” and using Grid View, drag them all together to desktop “2”, the result on Plasma 5 is that all the windows are now on desktop “2” and pager shows desktop “1” as empty (and when i exit Grid View, i’m back on an empty desktop “1” )… just as one would expect from the animation.

if this is not the behavior you observe on plasma 6 then i would consider this a regression and report it to bugs.kde.org

btw, when i use Overview it also shows that all the windows have been moved to desktop “2” but i cannot drag them back from there as a group like i can on Grid View.

1 Like