[compiz] multiscreen

[Brian J. Murrell]

On 13-01-09 09:12 AM, Sam Spilsbury wrote:
> Hi Brian

Hi Sam,

> Support for one instance managing multiple screens was removed in
> 0.9.0,

Oh, that's a pity.

> but I think you can manage more than one screen by using
> separate instances as you've done.

Yeah.  It does work.  Seems less efficient though having two instances
of compiz and decorators running.  Also, configuration options are not
shared so you end up having to configure them both individually with the
same settings.

> I'm not sure what the state of multiscreen settings are. I don't think
> they have been supported for quite some time. In my opinion, we should
> probably just remove that dropdown. I don't think there's a very good
> usecase for having per-screen settings, especially now that we have
> one compiz instance per screen.

However that's resolved, having to copy configuration from one instance
of the configuration manager to another, especially when you are not
allowed to run one on each screen, side-by-side, is more than just a
little annoying.  :-(

> Multiscreen is hardly a supported usecase anywhere,

Really?  Personally, I like the utility of having two screens,
side-by-side, each with their own multiple workspaces where I can switch
the workspace of one screen without switching the other.

When a "bigscreen" manager can do that, I'll be happy to jump.

> and many
> compositing managers have been trying to phase it out.

That is sad to hear.  Are any of them providing for the use-case I
described above though?

> I know it is
> also not working on other window managers such as Metacity.

I am using metacity (2.34.1) here right now and it's managing both screens.

> Most of
> the big desktop shells also do not support it properly either.

Indeed.  Due to my hardware configuration (two monitors, one of them
rotated 90 degrees) GNOME 3 is actually completely unable to run on this
configuration.  And I don't mean it's just not ideal, I mean it actually
completely refuses to run.

> The better thing to do in this instance is to use Xinerama-like
> implementations to manage multiple monitors,

But as I mentioned, I don't like both monitors switching in-tandem when
I want to switch workspaces.  I like being able to keep the monitor on
the left in workspace 1 while I switch the monitor on the right amongst
3-4 different workspaces.  And at the same time, I like to be able to
switch the left monitor from workspace 1 to workspace 2 while keeping
the right monitor on it's current workspace.

I'm sure such a paradigm could be achievable with a "bigscreen"
configuration (Xinerama or Nvidia twinview, etc.), I just don't know of
any that actually implement it.

> or to have multiple
> servers running for each head.

Bleah (assuming you mean multiple X servers -- something that I don't
think is even possible with a single card, dual screen video card).
That's even worse than running two window managers.

Thanks for the info.  Appreciate your time.

Cheers,
b.


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