Breakout: * multiscreen behaviour: how should Plasma exactly behave in different scenarios?

[Sebastian Kügler]

On Tuesday, October 18, 2016 1:16:33 PM UTC Marco Martin wrote:
> On Tuesday 18 October 2016, Martin Klapetek wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 12:59 PM, Jonathan Riddell <jr at jriddell.org> 
wrote:
> > >     <d_ed> biggest pain point from bugzilla is mostly still
> > >
> > > multiscreen. I'm not sure we have a solid plan of what /should/ happen
> > > in each situation.
> > > 
> > >     <d_ed> panel gets added to screen 1 and 2, you disconnect screen
> > >
> > > 2. How many panels do you have on screen 1
> >
> > (speaking from being in a work environment where I regularly switch
> > between various screens/tvs and screen setups multiple times a day)
> 
> hey Martin, nice to see you =)

Seconded, hey Martin!

Are you running Plasma 5.8, I've fixed a whole bunch of problems in that area, 
docking generally works fine here now. (Reports from others suggest the same.)

> > Ideally containments are tied to screens as a whole and no "merge"
> > of panels is happening. So in the case above, one panel. (I don't
> > remember if panels are part of the containments, but I'll assume it is)
> 
> yes, panels are containments with their own view window, just like the 
> desktops (so, assigned to a screen by their own)
> 
> > Ie: [laptop] [*screen1] --unplug screen--> [*laptop]
> >
> > That primary setting should also be remembered by a screen I think,
> > because if I'm plugging to a projector or big room TV, I don't think I
> > want
> > all my laptop screen suddenly jumping to the other screen for everyone
> > to see. In other words, I never set that TV or projector as primary and
> > therefore plasma shouldn't automatically assume "any external screen
> > equals move primary screen".
> 
> that would need I guess some special treating in kscreen like
> "when you encounter that particular screen (edid? manifacturer/model?) do
> not  set it as primary"
> or even stricter, set as primary only when you encounter that particular 
> screen that is the one you have sitting on your desk, and not any new
> unknown  one

That should already be the case. The configuration is remembered per unique 
set of outputs (it's a hash of the combined edid information of all connected 
outputs). By default, the desktop is extended, but the primary doesn't move to 
a newly connected output (unless you tell it to).

Of course, if it doesn't work like that, it's a bug. Reports welcome.

-- 
sebas

Sebastian Kügler    •    http://vizZzion.org    •    http://www.kde.org