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Comment by dotancohen | Hacker News Reader

Here's my short list of KDE features that I use daily:

  - Multiple desktops: Win-Tidle  
  - Move app to next screen: Win-N
  - Move app to next desktop: Shift-Win-N
  - Maximize window: Win-PageUp
  - Switch windows: Alt-Tab
  - Switch windows in application: Alt-Tilde
  - Show all Windows, filter by typing: Win-Tab
  - Launch program: Win-F2, Win-F12
  - Vertical task bar with task manager, analogue clock, system tray, main menu, language switcher indicator.
  - Window always on top toggle
  - Open specific application window with "always on top" activated
  - Open application always on specific desktop
  - Volume down: Win-[
  - Volume up: Win-]

If you tell me that Gnome now supports all that, then I'll invest the time in installing, configuring, and daily driving it for a few weeks.

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I don't know if this is my config or the default, but on my machine those features are set up like this:

- Multiple desktops: Winkey (list) or ctrl+alt+arrow (left and right) or triple finger drag on the trackpad (wayland)

- Move app to next screen: I know this is possible to configure, don't know the key combo, I move windows between virtual desktops more often

- Move app to next desktop ctrl+alt+shift+arrow keys (similar to switching desktops)

- Switch windows: alt+tab

- Switch windows in app: alt+tilde

- Launch program: alt+F2

- Vertical task bar with widgets: not without a bunch of extensions. You're stuck with a horizontal one in the vanilla config. I've enjoyed the default config Manjaro ships for Gnome myself, which provides a more fully featured task bar than the default setup, so maybe there's an extension that's right for you.

- Windows always on top toggle: in the window menu (when you right click on the window chrome)

- Volume up/down: bound to media keys by default, but I'm sure you can configure the necessary shortcuts. I'd probably bind a shortcut that injects media keys (xdotool?) to ensure compatibility with other programs but you could set up a shortcut to your favourite audio manager if you wish

I don't know about a searchable window list or launching a program always on top. You can configure a shortcut to mark a window as always on top after launching, and for the window list there's probably an extension out there (this seems promising https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1001/window-search-pr...).

Opening a window on a specific desktop should be possible with extensions (I think https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/16/auto-move-windows/ does this?)

I see, thank you very much.

Other than Alt-Tab, I try to avoid using Alt- or Ctrl- for window management or other "OS-level" tasks, because they tend to conflict with IDEs such as Jetbrains. So long as that's configurable it's fine.

I have yet to find a global shortcut that I couldn't reassign in the built-in shortcuts menu. If you want to avoid control and alt, you'll probably be reconfiguring or disabling a lot of shortcuts, though.

Yes, in KDE too I'm reconfiguring and disabling a lot of shortcuts!

> I have yet to find a global shortcut that I couldn't reassign in the built-in shortcuts menu.

Try the media keys, like playpause. You can use dconf though.

XFCE supports all that and more out of the box.

XFCE doesn't support wayland.

Good point ;-)

Terrific, thank you! It is always good to know which projects I could jump ship to if needed.

If you are using KDE on X11 right now, maybe you should give KDE Plasma a try.

Is there a KDE desktop other than Plasma? I do believe that I'm using KDE Plasma.

I'm sorry, I meant specifically KDE's Wayland compositor. I misremembered, it seems Plasma is more general than just the Wayland session

Running KDE on Wayland is afaict still not well-supported.

From what I've seen, it seems to work really well nowadays. AFAIK the Steam Deck even uses the Wayland KDE session for its desktop mode.

Have you tried it yourself? "Wayland support in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is in a tech-preview state. The workspaces have been developed for X11 and much functionality relies on X11. To be able to make proper use of Wayland these bits have to be rewritten." https://community.kde.org/KWin/Wayland

Yeah, I did try it out for a while, a year ago or so. Ended up sticking with sway due to personal preferences, but in general the KDE Wayland session acted the way I expected, and I didn't run into any bugs.

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