Re: Panel behaviour under Xinerama

[Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com>]

On Thu, 2003-05-08 at 12:08, Shane OConnor - Sun Ireland wrote:
> 
> Hey Mark,
> 
> AFAIK the idea of xinerama is that you can setup multiple (eg, 2) monitors to 
> act as one single monitor so I'd expect there to be one panel top or bottom that 
> stretches accross 2 monitors[1].

Yes, this is the primary difference between "plain multihead" and
"xinerama".   They look quite different to apps in general since
"xinerama" isn't really multihead, i.e. there is only one GdkScreen with
Xinerama (it spans two physical framebuffers).

I agree that when using Xinerama the correct thing to do is treat the
display as a single entity, i.e. span both monitors.  If that doesn't
give the user their desired behavior they can:

* switch to multihead instead, or
* use panels that don't expand
* put the panel at the top of the display, to prevent problems if the
screen heights don't match

My experience, in dealing with other Xinerama-vs-multihead issues in the
past (i.e. CDE, etc.), was that trying to make certain applications
"smart" about multihead (i.e making them aware of the physical screens)
led to a lot more problems than it solved.  And of course if you change
the xinerama behavior to make one user happy, you will upset two other
users ;-)

- Bill
> 
> What you're describing in 1) below sounds more like a multihead setup than 
> xinerama - i.e. multiple monitors each with displaying its own desktop but 
> controlled from same machine and allowing different configs for each desktop[1].
> 
> 
> Cheers
> Shane
> 
> [1] I'm no expert on requirements for xinerama or multihead so this is just what 
> I'd expect from my experience of working with these setups (which is limited) - 
> try Bob Kinsella (robert kinsella sun com) for more info.
> 
> 
> 
> >Delivered-To: desktop-devel-list gnome org
> >Subject: Panel behaviour under Xinerama
> >From: Mark McLoughlin <mark skynet ie>
> >To: Desktop Devel <desktop-devel-list gnome org>
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> >Date: 08 May 2003 11:19:29 +0100
> >
> >Hey,
> >	See http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=111712[1] - basically the
> >problem is that ever since the panel has had Xinerama support it only
> >spans a single (physical) screen on Xinerama rather than the entire
> >logical screen.
> >
> >	That makes sense to me for two reasons:
> >
> >	1) I'd imagine that most people use each monitor for different purposes
> >- e.g. you might typically do all you hacking on one monitor and have
> >email/irc open on the other monitor. It seems obvious then that you may
> >want (e.g.) a top and bottom panel on one monitor and only a top panel
> >on another monitor.
> >
> >	2) Its possible to configure Xinerama with monitors of different
> >resolutions and therefore the logical screen isn't completely
> >rectangular. If the panel spans the entire screen then you may "lose"
> >part of a panel on some configurations.
> >
> >	I've never used Xinerama for more than a few seconds (nor has George
> >AFAIK who did the Xinerama work in the first place) so I'd prefer to get
> >some input from people who actually do use it on a day to day basis.
> >
> >	Thoughts ?
> >
> >Cheers,
> >Mark.
> >
> >[1] - yes, yes the bug itself is little more than a rant ...
> >
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