How can I re-order the activities in KDE?

Question

I would like to be able to manually edit the order of my Activities in KDE. They are not listed in alphabetic order or the order that they are created, yet I haven't figured out how to change this order or how this order is set.

The obvious thing to try, drag-and-drop, does not work. I also haven't found were the order is set (closest thing I've found is ~/.kde/share/config/activitymanagerrc

I'm using Kubuntu 14.04. My kdelibs version is 4.13.0.

Answer 1

Looking at KDE 5 (plasma 5.20, frameworks 5.78) on Debian 11, there are various places where Activities are ordered differently.

Apparently, what you can do (with caveats, see below) is name or prefix the activities to achieve the desired ordering alphabetically, and choose from those widgets & keyboard shortcuts that obey that ordering.

Configuration:

• The list in System settings -> Workspace Behavior -> Activities:
  • Follows alphabetic ordering, but only when you switch away from that view and back in System Settings.

Widgets:

• The "Activity Bar" widget:
  • Alphabetical (ordering not configurable)
• The "Activity Pager" widget:
  • Alphabetical (ordering not configurable)
• The list/menu shown by the "Activity Manager" widget (always on the display's left hand side)
  • Some dynamic/random ordering, maybe by last use (ordering not configurable)

Keyboard shortcuts: behavior triggered by the shortcut in System Settings -> Shortcuts -> System Services / Activity Switching -> ...

• ... Switch to Next/Previous Activity:
  • Alphabetic ordering
  • ... at least sometimes. While testing this:
    • I've seen it randomly get stuck on one specific Activity (prefixed with "2-") while pressing the shortcut repeatedly
    • I have an activity prefixed with "9-" somehow placed between activities "1-..." and "2-...". But the ordering remains static.
  • Does not show any list / visual feedback when switching activities

• ... Walk Through Activities:
  • Some dynamic/random ordering, maybe by last use.
  • Shows the same (or similar) list on the display's left as the "Activity Manager" widget while switching.
• ... Show Activity Switcher:
  • Shows the same/similar list as "Walk Through Activities" and the "Activity Manager" widget, with dynamic/random ordering.

For more context, there are at least two entries in the bugtracker:

• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=362774
  • Closed, quoting from 2016: "Activities in the switcher are ordered by the most recently used - and that will not change (at least when the default switcher is concerned)."
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=370372