Some Issues I found with Dual Monitors in KDE

Tyler Mulligan — Thu, 13 May 2010 15:49:09 +0000

I had originally made a thread on ubuntu forums essentially asking how to change the way kde or more specifically kwin treats dual monitors.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.

Do Know Evil - A Blog by Tyler Mulligan » dual monitors

Some Issues I found with Dual Monitors in KDE