Arch Linux

manehi

Member

From: Oxford/Coventry England

Registered: 2008-07-21

Posts: 12

Website

split laptop screen into flowing columns? [partially solved]

Right. I've got a widescreen laptop, which is great when it's great, but not so great when I'm getting into essay season and find it much easier to type/edit lots of short lines than fewer, longer ones. So what would be nice is to have a text editor open in 900x1600 instead of 1600x900

Tried sticking the laptop on its side, changing the screen orientation and using a usb keyboard - gives me the effect I want, but as the power lead goes in on one side and the usb leads come out of the other, it's an awkward balancing act using an improvised stand whichever way I turn it.

So I'm wondering if there's a way to split the (normal way up) screen into two 800x900 columns, and make the left column flow into the right newspaper-column style, as if the left column was actually the top half and the right column the bottom half of a tall, thin screen. Not sure if it can be done at the desktop level, or maybe just for the editor [see PS].

A tiling wm or vsplit in vim gives me two columns easily enough, and works well for writing separate files, but to have the columns flow into each other while editing single files would be a nice bonus. Any suggestions?

PS. Huh, and just as I'm about to post the above, I find http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manua … -Mode.html. Will try looking for a vim equivalent, but looks like this'll do in a pinch. I guess I'll post this as partially solved for reference, and in case anyone has any other (less emacsy ) ideas.