Updates: Status: Fixed Comment #1 on issue 480 by vogt.a...@gmail.com: xmonad merge screens when recompile and restart http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=480 Please try with 0.10. I'll reproduce Tomas' explanation here (note the patch isn't included in 0.9.2): Thu Nov 19 09:50:43 EST 2009 Tomas Janousek * X.H.ManageDocks: ignore struts that cover an entire screen on that screen Imagine a screen layout like this: 11111111 11111111 11111111 222222 <--- xmobar here 222222 222222 When placing xmobar as indicated, the partial strut property indicates that an entire height of screen 1 is covered by the strut, as well as a few lines at the top of screen 2. The original code would create a screen rectangle of negative height and wreak havoc. This patch causes such strut to be ignored on the screen it covers entirely, resulting in the desired behaviour of a small strut at the top of screen 2. Please note that this semantics of _NET_WM_STRUT and _NET_WM_STRUT_PARTIAL is different to what is in wm-spec. The "correct" thing to do would be to discard the covered portion of screen 1 leaving two narrow areas at the sides, but this new behaviour is probably more desirable in many cases, at least for xmonad/xmobar users. The correct solution of having separate _NET_WM_STRUT_PARTIAL for each Xinerama screen was mentioned in wm-spec maillist in 2007, but has never really been proposed, discussed and included in wm-spec. Hence this "hack".