Smarter multi-screen layouts (ab)using XRandR
Hi, I always found it irritating how xmonad behaves with more than one screen, especially how workspace switching on one screen is “non local”, i.e. affects other screens. to clarify with two screens: A B [3][1] (focus on B) Press NextWorkspace [3][2] (focus on B) Press NextWorkspace [2][3] (focus on B) I would naively expect the last configuration to be [3][3] (focus on B) which is of course not possible. Or is it? Assume for now that both screens have the same resolution. Imagine that xmonad would transparently make screen B cover the same part of the virtual screen size as A, while the situation is [3][3] (focus on B) and move it back to its original position when moving on to [3][4] (focus on B). Wouldn’t this be much more intuitive? And it is not only about intuitiveness, but also very useful. When holding presentations, I tend to use a tool like pdf_presenter_console and therefore, my laptop screen (A) and the projector screen (B) display different workspaces. But when I then want to demonstrate something live, I’d like to have the same workspace on both. This is just a discussion starter. I have no code, and not solved all corner cases. Greetings, Joachim -- Joachim "nomeata" Breitner mail: mail@joachim-breitner.de | ICQ# 74513189 | GPG-Key: 4743206C JID: nomeata@joachim-breitner.de | http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ Debian Developer: nomeata@debian.org
Quoting Joachim Breitner <mail@joachim-breitner.de>:
I would naively expect the last configuration to be [3][3] (focus on B) which is of course not possible. Or is it?
And it is not only about intuitiveness, but also very useful. When holding presentations, I tend to use a tool like pdf_presenter_console and therefore, my laptop screen (A) and the projector screen (B) display different workspaces. But when I then want to demonstrate something live, I?d like to have the same workspace on both.
This requires compositing, if I understand the state of the art correctly. You may also like X.L.IndependentScreens, the next best thing for two screens; it takes your list of workspaces and makes n copies of each (where n is the number of screens you have). You can then choose which workspace is showing on which screen independently (though of course, as above, you can't show a single window on multiple visible workspaces at once unless you want to hack some compositing support into xmonad). Cheers, ~d
Quoting Joachim Breitner <mail@joachim-breitner.de>:
I'd like to have the same workspace on both [screens].
Oh, also, for your particular use-case of presenting, I've used the following hack with some success: start a VNC session locally, then open two clients and full-screen them, one on the projected workspace and one on the presenting workspace. ~d
Hi, Am Donnerstag, den 06.05.2010, 09:30 -0400 schrieb wagnerdm@seas.upenn.edu:
Quoting Joachim Breitner <mail@joachim-breitner.de>:
I would naively expect the last configuration to be [3][3] (focus on B) which is of course not possible. Or is it?
And it is not only about intuitiveness, but also very useful. When holding presentations, I tend to use a tool like pdf_presenter_console and therefore, my laptop screen (A) and the projector screen (B) display different workspaces. But when I then want to demonstrate something live, I?d like to have the same workspace on both.
This requires compositing, if I understand the state of the art correctly.
As long as you make the screen a complete clone, you can do it with xrandr – it supports clone mode as well as side-by-side. With compositing, things would be even nicer, because you could still have the panel on only one screen, or cope with different screen sizes (by rendering the program on to the size of one window, and scale for the other window). Greetings, Joachim -- Joachim Breitner e-Mail: mail@joachim-breitner.de Homepage: http://www.joachim-breitner.de ICQ#: 74513189 Jabber-ID: nomeata@joachim-breitner.de
Joachim Breitner <mail@joachim-breitner.de> writes:
Am Donnerstag, den 06.05.2010, 09:30 -0400 schrieb wagnerdm@seas.upenn.edu:
This requires compositing, if I understand the state of the art correctly.
As long as you make the screen a complete clone, you can do it with xrandr – it supports clone mode as well as side-by-side.
Well, yes, except that with that _everything_ is cloned: xrandr doesn't let you go from two different workspaces to the same workspace without changing how you do your multi-head. Put it this way: does _any_ WM let you do what you want? -- Ivan Lazar Miljenovic Ivan.Miljenovic@gmail.com IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
Hi, Am Freitag, den 07.05.2010, 08:04 +1000 schrieb Ivan Lazar Miljenovic:
Joachim Breitner <mail@joachim-breitner.de> writes:
Am Donnerstag, den 06.05.2010, 09:30 -0400 schrieb wagnerdm@seas.upenn.edu:
This requires compositing, if I understand the state of the art correctly.
As long as you make the screen a complete clone, you can do it with xrandr – it supports clone mode as well as side-by-side.
Well, yes, except that with that _everything_ is cloned: xrandr doesn't let you go from two different workspaces to the same workspace without changing how you do your multi-head.
Yes, but that is what I want: The same workspace on both screen...
Put it this way: does _any_ WM let you do what you want?
I don’t think so. But this is a pro-reason, isn’t it? :-) Greetings, Joachim -- Joachim "nomeata" Breitner mail: mail@joachim-breitner.de | ICQ# 74513189 | GPG-Key: 4743206C JID: nomeata@joachim-breitner.de | http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ Debian Developer: nomeata@debian.org
Joachim Breitner <mail@joachim-breitner.de> writes:
Hi,
I always found it irritating how xmonad behaves with more than one screen, especially how workspace switching on one screen is “non local”, i.e. affects other screens. to clarify with two screens:
A B [3][1] (focus on B) Press NextWorkspace [3][2] (focus on B) Press NextWorkspace [2][3] (focus on B)
Well, if you use greedyView for workspace switching, you'll instead be left with "[3][2] (focus on A)", if you prefer this kind of setup.
And it is not only about intuitiveness, but also very useful. When holding presentations, I tend to use a tool like pdf_presenter_console and therefore, my laptop screen (A) and the projector screen (B) display different workspaces. But when I then want to demonstrate something live, I’d like to have the same workspace on both.
I have never heard of pdf_presenter_console before; I take it this is it? http://westhoffswelt.de/projects/pdf_presenter_console.html ? -- Ivan Lazar Miljenovic Ivan.Miljenovic@gmail.com IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
Hi, Am Donnerstag, den 06.05.2010, 23:57 +1000 schrieb Ivan Lazar Miljenovic:
And it is not only about intuitiveness, but also very useful. When holding presentations, I tend to use a tool like pdf_presenter_console and therefore, my laptop screen (A) and the projector screen (B) display different workspaces. But when I then want to demonstrate something live, I’d like to have the same workspace on both.
I have never heard of pdf_presenter_console before; I take it this is it? http://westhoffswelt.de/projects/pdf_presenter_console.html ?
Yes, that one. The feature is also provided by openoffice, in form of the Sun Presenter Console, but only for Impress presentations. Florian Westhoff reimplemented it for PDF presentations. Greetings, Joachim -- Joachim Breitner e-Mail: mail@joachim-breitner.de Homepage: http://www.joachim-breitner.de ICQ#: 74513189 Jabber-ID: nomeata@joachim-breitner.de
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