Re: Separate virtual desktops for different monitors

[Arnout Engelen <wmspec bzzt net>]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 6:03 AM, Pavel Kretov <firegurafiku gmail com> wrote:

there exist managers which employ the different concept: they allow user to setup own set of virtual desktops for each of monitor. (Mac OS X has a similar feature too.)

I like this concept very much, too.

Unfortunately, such a behavior is not a part of the specification. I'd like to see such a behavior in mainstream window managers too, so are the questions:

— Are there any chances this become a part of standard?
— If yes, what can I do for this to happen?

I guess the main challenge is coming up with a good, backwards-compatible proposal.

The current desktop is currently held by _NET_CURRENT_DESKTOP. Currently our interpretation is that that desktop is also the only visible one. 

What if we added a '_NET_VISIBLE_DESKTOPS' holding the indexes of the visible desktops (i.e. the one visible on each display)? _NET_CURRENT_DESKTOP would still hold the current one (e.g. the one last switched to, or perhaps even tracking the window focus).

Legacy pagers would still work:

* highlighting the current desktop: this might change more often than traditionally, but still work.

* switching the current desktop: this would still work (though if you allow migrating desktops from one display to another the WM would now have to figure out on which display to put the selected desktop).

New pagers could:

* highlight all visible desktops

* switch desktops per display by updating _NET_VISIBLE_DESKTOPS (as well as _NET_CURRENT_DESKTOP).

Legacy applications would:

* consider themselves 'no longer on the desktop' when the user selects another desktop on another display

New applications could:

* handle 'no longer visible' and 'no longer on the current desktop' differently if needed

What would be further limitations of this approach? Other ideas?

Now whether 'mainstream window managers' would actually adopt this model of course remains to be seen, but if we can come up with a nice way to include it in the spec that certainly could lower the barrier.

Kind regards,

Arnout