Script Management for Activities

[clancularius]

I was explaining a feature to another user in a thread about how you can set scripts to work with activities

@clancularius

You can set it so that scripts run when an activity is started, stopped, switched (activated) and switched away from (deactivated). It’s a bit of a hidden feature though.

To use, open a terminal and type

kactivities-cli --list-activities

This will show you them listed with a long id number separated with four hyphens. Then navigate from your home folder to .local/share/kactivitymanagerd/activities/ (you might need to create folders if they don’t exist)

Create a folder there named the long id number of the activity you want to do scripts for. In that folder create four folders called activated, deactivated, started and stopped. In those folder you can place scripts that trigger at the equivalent moment.

This great feature is severely hidden and I only found it myself in a video or article (I can’t remember which) which was showing lesser known features. The feature seems half finished, when you create an activity the folders to put scripts in aren’t created and when you remove an activity the folders are left there. The first thing is this needs to change.

It would also be great to have the option to set these scripts in the GUI, then a lot more people would realise they exist. Maybe as a tab in this dialog:

Said settings being conceptually like this:

Hopefully you get the general idea.

[skyfishgoo]

excellent find, i think this GUI is a great idea.

to pile on, what if the scripts needed an argument passed to it… the GUI should allow you to edit that too.

[hook]

Something I am trying to do myself is to create a Activity template where:

1. the desktop is set to be “desktop” (instead of “folder”)
2. add a Folder plasmoid in a corner, and have it show all the files/directories associated with that Activity
3. (bonus points if it assigns a random wallpaper, extra points if it makes sure that wallpaper is not already used by a different Activity)
4. this should apply to every new Activity I create
5. (if I change these settings in a specific Activity, I want the changes to continue – not have them overridden)

I wonder if this is how it could be done. If so, I neeeed this

[BernardIgiri]

While you wait for this feature, I am currently using kas-installer on npmjs.

Unfortunately resuming activities can cause apps to load twice if you start them with the “started” event. I’m still working on a solution for that. Regardless, having a GUI is ideal. If you need a hand working on this let me know.