multi-screen management

[Björn Ruberg]

An Mittwoch, 18. August 2010 08:42:40 schrieb Chani:
> so... we had planned to have a little tool for managing the containments of
> multiple screens, in 4.5 - but there wasn't time. multiscreen has
> improvements, but also regressions - well, *a* regression - you can't
> access the containment of a screen that's not plugged in. the same applies
> to the per-desktop view stuff (they have a lot in common).
> 
> anyways, jpwhiting said he might be willing to implement such a tool, and
> yesterday I was inspired (compelled?) and found myself writing about how
> such a tool may look and act: http://community.kde.org/Plasma/Multiscreen
> 
> feedback would be very welcome. :) and since I know many of us hate
> clicking links, here's the current text copy&pasted:
> 
> Plasma/Multiscreen

I first thought this is about managing multiple output screens from plasma -  
something I'm interested in - until I noticed it's just about plasma 
workspaces. I think it might be very confusing for the users to have a screen 
management and a completly different workspace management. That should be 
avoided.

Thinking about it, I'm wondering if theses thoughts are not simply too 
complicated. One idea: We have already something in KDE 4.5 in place called 
"activities". They are just about what this is about: containments.
So, why not make it simple. Every time an additional screen is connected to 
the machine, a new acitivity is created and displayed, let's call it desktop2. 
This activity shows up in the activity manager and can be activated on another 
screen, deleted or whatever (might not be able to run on two screens of 
course). So no need for a new manager from this point of view, just use the 
existing one.

For displaying containments in the activity manager one idea - I learned that 
plasma is great in effects like scaling. Why not scaling the containments down 
to thumbnail size and display them lively in the activity manager? Would be 
enough to make a single screenshot-pixmap for every activity. This is a 
suggestion for the existing activity manager as well - but probably you 
already thought of this.