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Some Issues I found with Dual Monitors in KDE
I had originally made a thread on ubuntu forums essentially asking how to change the way kde or more specifically kwin treats dual monitors.
When trying out KDE 4.4, I was trying to establish a similar workflow to what I have in my GNOME/compiz setup. I use dual monitors and heavily use the expo compiz plugin (equivalent to kwin’s ‘desktop grid’). However, the behavior in KDE is a bit odd to me.
(not my video but gives you an idea about the effect, see below for how I lay mine out)
In compiz, I have 4 virtual desktops with dimensions that spanned both monitors.
[ ] | [ ]
In KDE however, each monitor is considered it’s own “activity” and as such, I have 8 virtual desktops
[ ][ ] | [ ][ ] [ ][ ] | [ ][ ]
This in and of itself isn’t all so bad. What bothers me however, is how they behave.
Labeling the virtual desktops..
[1][2] | [1][2] [3][4] | [3][4]
When I click virtual desktop [1] on the left monitor, [1] on the right monitor zooms with it. The behavior I’m used to in compiz would be to have both [1][2] on the left desktop zoom if I were to click [1].
Sure, this behavior “makes sense” knowing how KDE treats multiple monitors as separate activities but even after setting up matching desktop backgrounds on the monitors, I find it confusing to my workflow.
What’s more, is that KDE seems to know this is what I want… but ignores this fact when creating activities:
Has anyone come up with a clever solution to achieve this? I didn’t see anything about it planned for 4.5.
If it matters, I’m using twinview.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Tyler Mulligan on May 13, 2010 at 10:49 am, and is filed under Computers, KDE, Linux, Operating Systems, Software, Window Management, open source. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 1 year ago
I’m not really clear on what you mean with:
> When I click virtual desktop [1] on the left monitor, [1] on the right monitor zooms
> with it. The behavior I’m used to in compiz would be to have both [1][2] on the left
> desktop zoom if I were to click [1].
You’re saying, when you click [1] on the left monitor, you want both [1][2] to show on the left monitor? I’ve unfortunately not spent enough time with dual-monitor setups in KDE but it is something that I’d like, so I am curious as to the functionality and behaviour, as it will happen some day…
You can always create a wish on the KDE site (just basically a bug report but for a feature request).
about 1 year ago
Kwins current behavior will zoom mon 1 [1] with mon 2 [1] and mon 1 [2] with mon 2 [2], etc.
When I click on mon 1 [1], I’d like to zoom it with mon 1 [2], but display it on mon 2.
This is easier to understand if they are dual screen activities
[ 1 ] | [ 2 ]
[ 3 ] | [ 4 ]
This is how compiz with gnome behaves.