multi-screen management

[Marco Martin]

On Wednesday 18 August 2010, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:

> ok .. so given that these are use cases ... how about this as an idea:
> 
> in the Activity Manager panel, if there is more than one containment in the
> current activity, it is shown expanded with a snapshot of each containment.
> so, in a two screen system, the current activity would be represented by
> two screenshots next to each other instead of the one icon. click on one
> or the other would switch the current screen to be using that containment.
> 
> this doesn't touch the "bring that containment from Activity 1 over to
> Activity 3" issue, but that seems like more of an edge case, one that is
> harder to solve nicely and which probably requires a whole big "arrange
> stuff around" tool like in your proposal.

those expanded little screenshots could support drag and drop around in the 
activity manager itself tough

> if we just try and solve the above 2 use cases, though, we could perhaps do
> it right from inside the existing activity manager UI. thoughts?
> 
> > 3) user tried out the PDV feature, but didn't like it and turned it off.
> > now their system is slow, and someone on irc tells them it's because all
> > those other desktops are still running. they use the tool to delete all
> > those extra containments that aren't being used.
> 
> should turning off PDV just automatically remove all those other
> containments, or offer the option to do so when it is turned off?
> "Per-desktop views have been turned off and there are now several unused
> widget layouts. Would you like them to be removed automatically for you?
> This can result in a significant performance improvements. <Remove Unused
> Layouts> <Keep The Unused Layouts>"

uhm, not sure, it's a too technical question, just deleting could piss people 
off tough so yeah :/

> > > > When a screen is disconnected (or in PDV, a desktop removed) the
> > > > associated containment and view (for each running activity) should be
> > > > automatically stopped - and resumed again when the screen/desktop
> > > > returns. We can migrate panels, but not desktops, and it doesn't make
> > > > sense to leave something running and inaccessible (having to manually
> > > > stop it would also be Wrong).
> > > 
> > > it does make sense to leave something running if one can switch to it,
> > > though. if the switcher UI allows the user to do that, then it's
> > > probably fine.
> > 
> > except that I'm not sure how many users will realise they might have
> > stuff running still and check this tool. they'll just think their system
> > got slower because it's "bloated" or something :P
> > 
> > me, I plug in an external monitor (actually a tv) a couple of times a
> > week to watch movies. I don't want the containment for it running for
> > the rest of the week, and I don't really want to manually delete or
> > close it every time. and the multiscreen tool would then need a feature
> > to manually close things instead of deleting them, too.
> 
> how much weight (start up time, memory usage) does this use case incur
> right now? wallpapers on loaded on first-paint only, if there are no
> widgets then none are loaded or set up ... it might be very negligable and
> not work worrying about.

however it won't be negligable on netbook and mobile, but i was thinking about 
explicity stopping and restarting activities here


-- 
Marco Martin