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Help me understand multi-screen behavior

Added by Ned Ludd about 13 years ago

I have two screens under Nvidia Twinview. I started subtle with "--no-randr" and the default config file.

So when subtle starts I have the four views: "terms", "www", "gimp", "dev". Screen 1 has "terms", and screen 2 has "www".

I'm trying to understand how they interact with each other. There does not seem to be a consistent behavior.

  • I have a terminal on screen 1 and I start Firefox, which comes up on screen 2. If I click on the "www" view in the panel, the clients swap: Firefox comes to screen 1 and the terminal goes to screen 2.
  • Clicking on "terms" swaps them back again.
  • If I click on "gimp", Firefox stays on screen 2. And stays there when I click again on "terms".
  • If I click between "gimp" and "www" they swap screens, just like above.
  • But now I click on "terms", then "gimp", then "www", Firefox is on screen 1. If I now click between "www" and "gimp" the replace each other on screen 1.

My description is confusing I know, but the behavior is even more so.

Is this how it is supposed to be, and if so, can you explain the theory to me. Or is it that the "--no-randr" is not working properly?

I'm using Arch Linux.

Here's my xrandr output:

$ xrandr -q
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 2560 x 1024, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 2560 x 1024
default connected 2560x1024+0+0 0mm x 0mm
2560x1024 50.0*

Thanks! Keep up the good work, I love subtle otherwise...


Replies (3)

RE: Help me understand multi-screen behavior - Added by Christoph Kappel about 13 years ago

Hi,

did you enable a panel on the second screen and a view panel item? With it, it is easier to understand what really happens. Just comment in the sample in the default config, there is a second [multihead|screen]] section commented out.

# Example for a second screen:
#screen 2 do
#  top    [ :views, :title, :spacer ]
#  bottom [ ]
#end

Generally, subtle displays one view per screen and swaps them, when you click on a view that is visible on the other screen (grab :ViewSwitch) or sets focus to the view. (grab :ViewJump)

When you don't know that this might be a bit confusing and without a second view panel item it really weird I bet. ;)

Thanks, I will!

RE: Help me understand multi-screen behavior - Added by Ned Ludd about 13 years ago

Thanks.

So is there a way to make each screen be independent. I still can't wrap my head around the subtle way. (I'm coming from awesome, which does independent screens)

RE: Help me understand multi-screen behavior - Added by Christoph Kappel about 13 years ago

Independent of what? A screen is just a display for a view and each screen can display every view. (A view cannot b visible on several screens at once tho)

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