Re: Replacing gdk_display_open(char*)

[Maarten Bosmans <mkbosmans gmail com>]

2010/11/16 Petr Tomasek <tomasek etf cuni cz>:
> On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 09:15:43PM +0000, Ross Burton wrote:
>> What is stopping you using the GDK API to get the extents of the
>> monitors from the unified "screen" and say positioning the speakers
>> notes on one monitor and the presentation on the other?
>
> There are several problems with this:
>
>  a) cursor movement: With separate screens you can assure
> the mouse pointer will not go outside the area user expect it.
>
>  b) background and desktop icons. Consider e.g. public film
> screening, You don't want, that your desktop background and
> icons appear before and after the film.
>
>  c) you surely don't want random applications poping up
> on the public screen even if they were intended to be shown
> only privately on the laptop.
>
> So the problem is not if You could get Your application displayed
> on particular device, but to assure that this device won't be
> in any way affected by other applications.
>
> This can be done only accomplished through some concept of a "screen";
> what You described is only an ugly hack...

Well, that's certainly some usefull functionality. I have a
presentation app myself that would benefit from this approach.

Unfortunately, there is no equivalent to multple screens in other
OSes. In Windows there are multiple desktops, but from the link Tor
gave it appears that only one can be active at any time. The MSDN
documentation tells that it is for example used to make the programs
of the current user inaccessible when switching to the screensaver or
login process.

So the proposal of the original poster makes sense. All the gdk api
concerning screens and displays should be made X11 specific and only
the multiple monitors (on the default screen) is cross-platform.

Maarten