Aha! I see the problem! Your settings filter is clogged with cat hair from the first deskt… workspace! >:)
Actually, I think you’re on the right track and that’s a nice way of doing it. KDE has a forum. I wonder if we could get any information there? I’m going to poke around a bit and see. I think I might like your way a little better than the wat I have it now.
Bart
Did you try to saving the configuration as your default activity?
Hmmm. Hadn’t thought of that. I will give it a try sometime soon and report back here.:\
Did you try system-settings>start & shut-down>session management>on boot → choose restore previous session or a previously saved one? It might work with panels too, although I never tried with them, only apps.
Years ago I experimented with Virtual Desktops/Activities and vaguely remember that sometimes to get different stuff in each one I had to explicitly delete/re-add said stuff so it wouldn’t be seen as a default thing in all VDs/Activities/Whatever. This probably was a bug long squashed, but as a long shot you could try, for example, to create panels 2,3,…, move them, and delete panel 1, reboot, etc. You get the idea…
Hi, Bruno:
I have not tried that, but I am already quite confident that it would work. However, I have always much preferred not to restore previous sessions, as there are many things known and unknown that I do not wish to carry between sessions.
Hibernating and waking, as I think I already mentioned, works fine (although I have to apply my custom noblankscreen script to reset power management and screen blanking back off, a small thing).
Years ago I experimented with Virtual Desktops/Activities and vaguely remember that sometimes to get different stuff in each one I had to explicitly delete/re-add said stuff so it wouldn’t be seen as a default thing in all VDs/Activities/Whatever. This probably was a bug long squashed, but as a long shot you could try, for example, to create panels 2,3,…, move them, and delete panel 1, reboot, etc. You get the idea…
All this appears to have become a moot point, though, because the KDE team appears to be very obstinate about removing these options the way I am using them – in fact, what I am doing cannot be done in version 5, and it has been emphatically stated by the KDE devs that this is the way it is going to be.
So, my preferred method of working is apparently going to be gone completely when 13.1 Evergreen comes to its EOL.>:(
I feel like I am being Microsoffed!
You need to force the save once you don’t have to do it every time you quit. Set things the way you want it turn save session on log out. log in turn save session off . Now the default session should be the configuration you want. I think that setting activities should more or less do the same.
Of course you are doing something that the developers did not intend nor design and the new Plasma 5 will definitely not support. Just look how hard you have to work to get this configuration in the first place.
Possible work around is leave the normal panel but make it hidden add you new setup panel ( I note you want it at the top any way so should not be a problem). AFAIK you can have as many panels as you want. Maybe that would work but then again maybe the panels will want to be on all the Virtual desktops??? 
Or you could move to using activities which was designed for this sort of thing…
Tried that, and as I said, absolutely do not like that. I especially do not like the way the Activities interface and switching is set up, much prefer the Desktop switching method.
Also, note that in 5, although you can have multiple VDs in each activity, you cannot have different backgrounds, etc., in each VD in a single activity.
You can only have different backgrounds in each activity, multiple VDs with the same background in that activity.
Plus, the concept and the semantics around Activities refuses to match my needs.
That did not work for Activities.
I might try again with the session save, though.
Of course you are doing something that the developers did not intend nor design and the new Plasma 5 will definitely not support. Just look how hard you have to work to get this configuration in the first place.
???
I did not have to work very hard at it, at all. The only thing is, when I first log in, I have to move each panel to show on its own desktop instead of all desktops … not a major job, just a slightly bothersome one that should not be necessary. If I have to live with that, no real problem, but if there is a solution, even better.
And the part that makes that the worst is actually the way the devs decided to place the “Move to Desktop” option: You need to click on “Remove this Panel” to get to the “Move to Desktop” option. One wrong move and instead of moving the panel, it vaporizes. Very Clumsy design, I think … somebody was not thinking straight when they designed that.
As for setting up the desktops like that, it was quick and simple.
I received a PM from one of my friends with a question that made me realize the size of my images and my explanation may have lacked some clarity.
I have decided to answer the question here, for the benefit of anyone following this thread.
The question was about the way Dolphin is set up on each desktop.
First, the icons for Dolphin on the panels are all for the standard Dolphin, none are for the SuperUser Dolphin. You could put a SuperUser one there, if you wish, and as my friend suggested, you could colour the icon differently (red is the colour he chose for the SuperUser Dolphin icon on his own setup, BTW, seems to me to be a good idea) or use a different icon to identify it.
Instead, what I was trying to point out was that I had Dolphin set to launch with the Directory that is used for the Tasks on the active desktop.
To do that, simply right-click the icon and choose Icon Settings (Alt-D, S if you prefer the shortcut).
In there, go to the application tab.
In the Command entry box, you will see something like this:
dolphin %i -caption %c %u
Simply go to the end of that command, add a space, then enter the full path to the directory you want to open.
From then on, when you launch from that icon, it will open the directory you entered in that command. You can have more than one icon for Dolphin on the panel, with each icon launching a different directory.
Here are cutouts of my 4 Desktops, at a better resolution, to better illustrate the different panels and the Dolphin icons that launch different directories on each panel.
Desktop 1 (Dolphin launches the ~/ directory) and below it Desktop 2 (Dolphin launches the directory for tracking abusers and resources for hardening my website server)
http://paste.opensuse.org/images/47068875.png
Desktop #3, Dolphin launches my Photos Directory (with all my DigiKam albums in subdirectories)
http://paste.opensuse.org/images/59177514.png
Desktop #4, Dolphin launches the two main Directories where I currently work on Video editing. I drag files back & forth between the two while editing.
(You could also use tabs or two panes in Dolphin, but I prefer this method, myself)
http://paste.opensuse.org/images/95745109.png
I trust this makes things clearer to any thread readers who might want to borrow some ideas.
… As for the KDE devs’ stubborn stance on this, see this, Closed as Won’t Fix:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=343246
So now we’ll be treated to a fork of KDE. I can already think of a good name for it.
Bart
LXQT will be the sane version 
Is what I am waiting for. Is avail. already but may be not a “mature” version of it. Get benefits of QT which is in good shape going by framework gossip. No GTK2/3 mess which sooner or later might haunt XFCE for example - and no new KDE ideas.
Lets hope KDE make more activities more attractive because if they made wallpapers depending on feature to make it harder to avoid they will suffer. For non-Gnome users it is almost instinctively a good idea to mark virtual desktops with dif. background. Not a must but make sense. Is good when a feature does not need an open source usability expert to set up polls to ponder how to understand it.
I am not a programmer. The last time I did any programming was back in the mid-1980s and, although I was really deep into it at the time and really enjoyed it, especially Machine Language and Assembly Language, I wound up being led off in another direction.
But, if I was a programmer, I would already – at this very moment – be organizing a group of like-minded individuals to start a fork of KDE aimed at keeping the Freedom of Choice and flexibility alive, and improving on it.
Since I am not a programmer, all I can do now is sit back and wait, and hope enough programmers decide they do not like what we are saying we do not like.
Same wallpaper on all KDE5 VDs?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
WTF WERE THEY THINKING???
OMG, WHY? WHY?
Sigh.
Ok, I fell better now.