You can use both at the same time. Each activity gets its own set of virtual desktops. I use activities to switch between low-distraction and high-distraction modes; combined with a 2x2 grid of virtual desktops, I have certain important things on the north-east virtual desktop on all activities, but other things will be only in one or the other activity.

I am also interested in this. I've also never been able to fully grok what 'Activities' are, though I've never gone all in on learning them.

Activities will get you things like:

- different task bar layouts for different activities

- different desktop widget layouts for different activities

- you can associate files with activities and Dolphin has a `currentactivity://` scheme (tho I do wish this could be extended to apps. As of now if you only want an app to be in a certain activity you've got some window rules to setup)

They live in an awkward place, since virtual desktops are a Linux WM thing while activities are just a KDE plasma thing.

I am not sure what is interesting in having different task layout but feel free to educate me.

As for widgets, I am still struggling to see the point of widgets (regardless of platform, it is the same for mobiles). Usually if I am in front of my computer screen, I will hace apps opened that will hide any kind if widgets. Or is it for people using 8k 120cm diagonals screens?

Not sure what's hard to imagine about different sets of icons in your taskbar. Quick example, your personal taskbar might have:

- Steam

- Youtube

- Plex

While for work you might have:

- A terminal

- Work chat

- Work ticketing system

- Your editor

I'll just link to a page about Activities since I'm just rehashing them: https://docs.kde.org/stable5/en/plasma-desktop/plasma-deskto...

This is a step in the right direction, if someone could come up with a simple enough but extensible enough de-facto standard for multiple “profile”, our lives would be immensely enriched.

KDE already had per-virtual-desktop backgrounds before that feature was removed in favor of activities. There is no reason different widgets (both desktop and panel) couldn't have been added to virtual desktops instead.

Activities are virtual desktops with per desktop widgets and desktop settings.

You either use them instead of standard virtual desktops or if you need sets of sets of applications in addition to eg both work and home activities have desktops 1..n with different windows.

Others in the thread have already provided explanations of the features, but I would like to highlight how I personally utilize KDE Activities as a use case. I rely on it to create dedicated spaces for different projects or clients, complete with their own distinct virtual desktops and settings. This functionality has been invaluable to me, particularly when sharing screens with individuals involved in specific projects. This separation of tasks and switching between them is pretty seamless.

Here is one example:

I use virtual desktops to separate apps when developing (1 for terminal, 2 for the app, 3 for docs, 4 for the IDE, 5 for additional tools). I switch between them every few seconds sometimes, so the exact numbering is important.

With KDE activities, it's nice to be able to have two fully separate projects (different customers or contexts) open at the same time, while keeping their respective virtual desktop arrangements.