GSoC Idea: better multi-head support

[Aike J Sommer]

Hi,

i'm not quite sure wether this idea is best suited on this list, but since it 
involves quite a bit of plasma-related things i figured i'd just give it a 
shot! :-)

I am a student of computer science in Dortmund, Germany and have been doing 
lots of different software development things in the past. I have never 
contributed to KDE even though it has been my primary desktop for several 
years now.

This idea came to my mind while looking what laptop to get, since its time to 
buy something new. ;-) I was looking to see wether it will be possible to get 
a small laptop and an external display and be able to just plug the laptop to 
whatever monitor i am around, at work, at home or whatever and have an 
extended screen with all the eyecandy enabled.

So, this is what i came up with, is this doable? And worth pursuing? Or am i 
totally on the wrong track? (Or on the wrong list? ;-) )


* Summary:
  1) Make it easy for users to use KDE in multi-head setups
  2) Provide a nice GUI for setting up (XRandR 1.2) hotplugged devices
  3) Allow to use different profiles for different devices
  4) Provide an intuitive integration with plasma
  5) Investigate what needs to be done in other applications to make 
     everything work smooth


1) Ideally using a second monitor should be as easy as plugging it in,
   selecting what its position is and what you want to use it for.
   With XRandR 1.2 this would actually be possible, but using the 
   xrandr command from a console is not really very comfortable.
   A further problem is to create a configuration for panel and desktop
   which will work perfectly no matter wether or which monitor is
   plugged in.

2) I think the best way to publish connected monitors and its 
   configuration choices would be the "New Device Notifier", either
   through a direct XRandR/Xinerama DataEngine or by making Solid know
   about these devices.
   The notifier could then offer actions such as: Clone, Presentation,
   Media-Player or Advanced Configuration, which would setup the correct
   mode using XRandR and if applicable load specific Plasma-containments
   or launch the configuration-module.

3) The chosen actions or configuration should be remembered in form of 
   profiles, which can then automatically be loaded when the same device
   is plugged in again at a later time.
   This would allow for an extended screen to the left when you plug in 
   the LCD in the office, using that LCD as primary screen and using the
   laptops display as secondary screen (panel moving to the external 
   display, kopete moving to the internal for example). And when you
   plug in the projector in the meeting-room it will set that up with a
   special containment for presentations. And last but not least hooking
   up the plasma-tv ;-) in your living-room will automatically launch a
   mediaplayer like mythtv on it.

4) This includes making the "New Device Notifier" monitor-aware, provide
   feedback in the pager and allowing to apply settings from the 
   profiles. In my 4.0.2 setup plasma also doesnt behave perfectly when
   the screen is extended by a hotplugged monitor, but most of that is 
   probably already fixed in trunk. :-)

5) In the past years i have seen variuos issues with applications in
   multi-head setups. This also includes KWin which in my current setup 
   has some glitches with compositing enabled. Finding and reporting 
   those issues might help a lot in "making the experience complete"!


So long!!
:-)