Window / Screen question

[Nathanael D. Noblet]

Hi,

   This isn't a fedora question specifically, however just thought I'd 
run it by to get some feedback.

   I've had a multi-card/multi-monitor setup for a few months now. It 
has been a royal pain. (Only the closed drivers can handle it 
unfortunately). I was talking to the radeon/ati driver people and have 
been informed that multi-card setups don't get much love from either the 
driver developers or upstream/xorg. So I've figured I may move from 3 
monitors back to 2 larger (24") monitors. So after that history, here 
comes the idea...

   I'm wondering if it is possible to have 'fake' monitor 
borders/dimensions. So you instruct xorg/gnome/xinerama or whatever that 
the 1900 pixel width is 2/3rd + 1/3rd. If I were to click maximize 
within either of those imaginary borders, it would maximize to that size 
instead of the 1900 px width. If I double clicked, it would then go 
fullscreen...

Does this sound at all useful? Opinions / critiques...

-- 
Nathanael d. Noblet
Gnat Solutions, Inc
T: 403.875.4613

[Pavel Shevchuk]

Sounds like tiling windowmanagers. dwm from http://suckless.org ?

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 9:52 PM, Nathanael D. Noblet <nathanael(a)gnat.ca&gt; wrote:
>  Hi,
>
>   This isn't a fedora question specifically, however just thought I'd run it
>  by to get some feedback.
>
>   I've had a multi-card/multi-monitor setup for a few months now. It has been
>  a royal pain. (Only the closed drivers can handle it unfortunately). I was
>  talking to the radeon/ati driver people and have been informed that
>  multi-card setups don't get much love from either the driver developers or
>  upstream/xorg. So I've figured I may move from 3 monitors back to 2 larger
>  (24") monitors. So after that history, here comes the idea...
>
>   I'm wondering if it is possible to have 'fake' monitor borders/dimensions.
>  So you instruct xorg/gnome/xinerama or whatever that the 1900 pixel width is
>  2/3rd + 1/3rd. If I were to click maximize within either of those imaginary
>  borders, it would maximize to that size instead of the 1900 px width. If I
>  double clicked, it would then go fullscreen...
>
>  Does this sound at all useful? Opinions / critiques...
>
>  --
>  Nathanael d. Noblet
>  Gnat Solutions, Inc
>  T: 403.875.4613
>
>  --
>  fedora-devel-list mailing list
>  fedora-devel-list(a)redhat.com
>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
>  


-- 
http://scwlab.com

[Nathanael D. Noblet]

>  On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 9:52 PM, Nathanael D. Noblet
> <nathanael(a)gnat.ca&gt; wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> >  This isn't a fedora question specifically, however just thought I'd run it
> > by to get some feedback.
> >
> >  I've had a multi-card/multi-monitor setup for a few months now. It has been
> > a royal pain. (Only the closed drivers can handle it unfortunately). I was
> > talking to the radeon/ati driver people and have been informed that
> > multi-card setups don't get much love from either the driver developers or
> > upstream/xorg. So I've figured I may move from 3 monitors back to 2 larger
> > (24") monitors. So after that history, here comes the idea...
> >
> >  I'm wondering if it is possible to have 'fake' monitor
> borders/dimensions.
> > So you instruct xorg/gnome/xinerama or whatever that the 1900 pixel width is
> > 2/3rd + 1/3rd. If I were to click maximize within either of those imaginary
> > borders, it would maximize to that size instead of the 1900 px width. If I
> > double clicked, it would then go fullscreen...
> >
> > Does this sound at all useful? Opinions / critiques... 
>  Sounds like tiling windowmanagers. dwm from http://suckless.org ?
Does gnome support this? That would be very nice.

-- 
Nathanael d. Noblet
Gnat Solutions, Inc
T: 403.875.4613

[Casey Dahlin]

Nathanael D. Noblet wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 9:52 PM, Nathanael D. Noblet 
> > <nathanael(a)gnat.ca&gt; wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >>  This isn't a fedora question specifically, however just thought I'd 
> >> run it
> >> by to get some feedback.
> >>
> >>  I've had a multi-card/multi-monitor setup for a few months now. It 
> >> has been
> >> a royal pain. (Only the closed drivers can handle it unfortunately). 
> >> I was
> >> talking to the radeon/ati driver people and have been informed that
> >> multi-card setups don't get much love from either the driver 
> >> developers or
> >> upstream/xorg. So I've figured I may move from 3 monitors back to 2 
> >> larger
> >> (24") monitors. So after that history, here comes the idea...
> >>
> >>  I'm wondering if it is possible to have 'fake' monitor 
> >> borders/dimensions.
> >> So you instruct xorg/gnome/xinerama or whatever that the 1900 pixel 
> >> width is
> >> 2/3rd + 1/3rd. If I were to click maximize within either of those 
> >> imaginary
> >> borders, it would maximize to that size instead of the 1900 px 
> >> width. If I
> >> double clicked, it would then go fullscreen...
> >>
> >> Does this sound at all useful? Opinions / critiques...
>
>  > Sounds like tiling windowmanagers. dwm from http://suckless.org ?
>
>  Does gnome support this? That would be very nice.
>  
I don't know that I agree with Nathaniel's recommendation. Tiled window 
managers do a lot of neat things, and are worth checking out, but I 
don't think they solve your problem specifically.

XRandR might be able to be coaxed into doing what you want. You also 
might be able to get Compiz to display 3 workspaces across 2 monitors.

--CJD

[Nathanael D. Noblet]

Casey Dahlin wrote:
>  Nathanael D. Noblet wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 9:52 PM, Nathanael D. Noblet 
> >> <nathanael(a)gnat.ca&gt; wrote:
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>>  This isn't a fedora question specifically, however just thought I'd
>
> >>> run it
> >>> by to get some feedback.
> >>>
> >>>  I've had a multi-card/multi-monitor setup for a few months now. It 
> >>> has been
> >>> a royal pain. (Only the closed drivers can handle it unfortunately). 
> >>> I was
> >>> talking to the radeon/ati driver people and have been informed that
> >>> multi-card setups don't get much love from either the driver 
> >>> developers or
> >>> upstream/xorg. So I've figured I may move from 3 monitors back to 2 
> >>> larger
> >>> (24") monitors. So after that history, here comes the idea...
> >>>
> >>>  I'm wondering if it is possible to have 'fake' monitor 
> >>> borders/dimensions.
> >>> So you instruct xorg/gnome/xinerama or whatever that the 1900 pixel 
> >>> width is
> >>> 2/3rd + 1/3rd. If I were to click maximize within either of those 
> >>> imaginary
> >>> borders, it would maximize to that size instead of the 1900 px 
> >>> width. If I
> >>> double clicked, it would then go fullscreen...
> >>>
> >>> Does this sound at all useful? Opinions / critiques...
> >
> > > Sounds like tiling windowmanagers. dwm from http://suckless.org ?
> >
> > Does gnome support this? That would be very nice.
> >
>  I don't know that I agree with Nathaniel's recommendation. Tiled window 
>  managers do a lot of neat things, and are worth checking out, but I 
>  don't think they solve your problem specifically. 
I think you mean Pavel's suggestion...?

>  XRandR might be able to be coaxed into doing what you want. You also
>
>  might be able to get Compiz to display 3 workspaces across 2 monitors. 
with configuration, or code?



-- 
Nathanael d. Noblet
Gnat Solutions, Inc
T: 403.875.4613

[Matthew Miller]

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 12:52:16PM -0600, Nathanael D. Noblet wrote:
>    I'm wondering if it is possible to have 'fake' monitor
>
>  borders/dimensions. So you instruct xorg/gnome/xinerama or whatever that 
>  the 1900 pixel width is 2/3rd + 1/3rd. If I were to click maximize within 
>  either of those imaginary borders, it would maximize to that size instead 
>  of the 1900 px width. If I double clicked, it would then go fullscreen...
>  Does this sound at all useful? Opinions / critiques... 
XFCE has a feature almost like this in its Workspace Margins. You could tell
it to leave a 633-pixel margin at the right side of the screen, and windows
will be maximized to the area except for that. You can't double-click to go
full-screen, but you can still resize (or move) the window manually into
that area.

-- 
Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)mattdm.org&gt;
Senior Systems Architect 
Cyberinfrastructure Labs
Computing & Information Technology 
Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences

[Bill Crawford]

On Wednesday 22 October 2008 19:52:16 Nathanael D. Noblet wrote:
>  Hi,
>
>     This isn't a fedora question specifically, however just thought I'd
>  run it by to get some feedback.
>
>     I've had a multi-card/multi-monitor setup for a few months now. It
>  has been a royal pain. (Only the closed drivers can handle it
>  unfortunately). I was talking to the radeon/ati driver people and have
>  been informed that multi-card setups don't get much love from either the
>  driver developers or upstream/xorg. So I've figured I may move from 3
>  monitors back to 2 larger (24") monitors. So after that history, here
>  comes the idea... 
Having similar problems here, but without adding nomodeset/nofb options to the 
kernel command line I can't even boot this machine into current rawhide. With 
nomodeset alone, I get to a command line but there's an oops when it tries to 
load the radeon driver.

>     I'm wondering if it is possible to have 'fake'
> monitor
>  borders/dimensions. So you instruct xorg/gnome/xinerama or whatever that
>  the 1900 pixel width is 2/3rd + 1/3rd. If I were to click maximize
>  within either of those imaginary borders, it would maximize to that size
>  instead of the 1900 px width. If I double clicked, it would then go
>  fullscreen...
>
>  Does this sound at all useful? Opinions / critiques... 
This sounds very like a debugging mode metacity used to have where it would 
pretend you had two side by side half-width screens (so apps would maximise to 
half the desktop) but it wasn't configurable, just a way to test xinerama code 
in metacity. Would be extremely useful, for me at least, if I get the 1920 by 
1200 monitor I'd like :-q

>  --
>  Nathanael d. Noblet
>  Gnat Solutions, Inc
>  T: 403.875.4613