kRe: Xinerama support

John seems to be having problems posting to the list... I have
forwarded his messages here:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 22-Jan-2007 10:25
Subject: [Fwd: Re: Xinerama support]


My two posts that haven't shown up....

Any chance you could send them on...

 Valkonen wrote:
> I should perhaps add that even with a mod_xinerama and _any_
> reasonable effort, Xinerama will still have serious problems, at
> least with programs that try to position their own floating windows,
> and possibly also ones that use crappy methods to look up windows.
> The former simply is not doable without updates to the ICCCM to be
> aware of nested WM window configurations. Currently the ICCCM does
> not specify how applications should handle multiple levels of WM
> windows, but also does not disallow it. So one app handles that one
> way, and another the other way.

Although there are some programs that are _so_ broken that this is an
advantage.
VNCviewer, for instance, jumps to steal focus (any time the remote
changes size, as it does when you're watching a development machine boot
up), unless it's on a multihead display, in which case it sticks to one
screen (I think it's screen 1 in my setup).

Not that that's any excuse, I really ought to try and fix vnc myself...

John

PS - Have to say I disagree about multihead being a waste of time, even
after reading Tuomo's "Not a blog" entry. I find the additional screen
real estate very useful, and much cheaper to manufacture/buy/run than a
40+" screen ;)

_____________

Tuomo Valkonen wrote:
> On 2007-01-22, Seth Arnold <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Sometimes it is more economical to purchase two lower-resolution devices
>> than one high-resolution device ...
>> I didn't want to give up the screen space, but a 1600x1200 LCD was simply
>> not in my budget at the time.
>
> You don't need that much space. Your field of vision isn't that big at
> a "working distance" (as opposed to "monitoring distance") from the
> screens, so you could just as well switch a workspace as turn your head
> to the other display. Like I say in the FAQ, the real reason for
> multihead is penis enlargment most of the time.

I disagree - I can easily fill my pair of 1280*1024 monitors with active
 frames, the overhead of moving my eyeballs slightly is a whole lot less
than flicking backwards and forwards between workspaces - especially on
older hardware*, which takes a while to paint the screen.

The other advantage is that it's an infinitely flexible document holder
by your workspace - so the document I'm referencing and my workspace, as
well as the results of my code changes can all be displayed comfortably
and easily - alongside the few windows I actively monitor, sat at the
far edge of the screens.

Jumping applications between the screens is a very useful thing to be
ale to do as well, especially if a colleague comes to see what you're
doing, I'd like to be able to move workspaces in their entirety, but
that's evidently not happening any time soon.

John

* My monitors are about 5 years old, and PC about 4.  It doesn't always
crawl, but it does take appreciable time to change workspaces.