Arch Linux

evilgold

Member

Registered: 2008-10-30

Posts: 120

Dual monitor behavior in awesome vs other WMs

I've been using awesome3 on and off since its release. One of my favorite features is that it allows me to change the tag on one of my two screens without changing the other. So if i have a movie playing on tag 1 on my right screen, i can still switch between all 9 tags on my left screen and not loose sight of the movie. I havnt found any other window manager that creates this behavior by default, and i cant seem to figure out a way to make gnome or XFCE do it.

Whilest I love using awesome, my girlfriend and the various other non-geeks who use my computer from time when im not around would prefer something like gnome or XFCE.

Is this something that anyone else has delt with? I'm not a huge fan of tiling (but i do think its neat)... i just happen to like the hotkeys and other features that awesome has over other WMs, The only one of which i can not reproduce on compiz being the desktop behavior.

WhiteMagic

Member

Registered: 2007-03-01

Posts: 85

Re: Dual monitor behavior in awesome vs other WMs

I've never used Gnome or XFCE on my computer when I had two monitors attached to it if my memory is correct then e17 was able to handle screen switching the way awesome does. It's hower a year or two since I last used e17 so that might have changed or I might misremember it.

Dieter@be

Forum Fellow

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-11-05

Posts: 2,001

Website

Re: Dual monitor behavior in awesome vs other WMs

I've been using awesome3 on and off since its release. One of my favorite features is that it allows me to change the tag on one of my two screens without changing the other. So if i have a movie playing on tag 1 on my right screen, i can still switch between all 9 tags on my left screen and not loose sight of the movie. I havnt found any other window manager that creates this behavior by default, and i cant seem to figure out a way to make gnome or XFCE do it.

floating WM's like xfwm etc support a "pin" mode where you can pin a window , if you change workspaces, the pinned windows remain shown.

---

< Daenyth> and he works prolifically
4 8 15 16 23 42

X/ax

Member

From: Oost vlaanderen, Belgium

Registered: 2008-01-13

Posts: 275

Website

Re: Dual monitor behavior in awesome vs other WMs

In floating WM's I've noticed that they simply expand the current desktop to 2 windows. Also, this defers to what X.org option you're using:
- Xinerama: Expand the desktop, you can drag between screens, but changing desktop changes both screens.
- Seperate X: Mouse can go between screens, but programs cannot move between screens. For as much as I remember, you're quite stuck on what you place on each screen...

---

My coding blog (or an attempt at it)
Archer start page (or an attempt at it)

evilgold

Member

Registered: 2008-10-30

Posts: 120

Re: Dual monitor behavior in awesome vs other WMs

I've known about the pin option, but it doesnt replicate the behaviour of awesome. Seperate X Sessions is also a no go, because i do sometimes like to have firefox open on both screens, and i would really miss the ability to move windows between screens.