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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: [PATCH] kdm on the right head
From:       George Staikos <staikos () kde ! org>
Date:       2002-03-01 2:48:13
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As a followup (Kevin and I already spoke about this) for people who are 
interested...

These changes were not the end of the Xinerama work.  They were a start at 
things to make KDE look sane.  We tried various configurations of heads and 
settings and many of the looked like ****.  Most of the problems are due to 
the fact that Kicker interacts very poorly with Xinerama.  The changes there 
are not simple.  It looks very strange to have the menubar on one head, 
kicker on another, and your app on the third.  It's better to have initial 
consistency and let the user modify as he sees fit.  At least that's the 
impression I have received all day today.

Again, this code is not nearly done.  It is a start.  I'm not trying to screw 
up anyone's favorite settings... I'm just trying to bring some sanity to 
other peoples' situations.  In fact, in the case of the menubar, there was no 
explicit code in place to determine which head it would go to.

What works for some people does not work for others.  This is so true for 
Xinerama.  What we really need is a configuration panel for Xinerama.  We 
don't have one [other than the few settings in Window Behaviour/advanced - 
those are still honoured as always or better]; we don't have time to make one 
for KDE 3.0.  Kevin and I are going to make config options without gui for 
now so that these things will be available to those who wish to configure 
them (such as myself and Kevin).  

In addition, one strong reason for making the up-left head the default instead 
of "head0" _while_things_are_not_configurable_ is because the user can then 
decide which video port and monitor will be in which physical location, and 
thus people with Matrox Gxx0 cards (probably the most popular for Xinerama) 
can decided where they will have the 
Xv/whatever-X-extension-works-on-only-head0 capable head.  Configurability is 
the only eal solution though.

And I think that's enough said about that! :)


On Friday 01 March 2002 02:25, Kevin Puetz wrote:
> >Here is a patch for kdm to make it display on the proper head.  Before the
> >default value was 1 which is rather random since the screens range from
> >[0..n-1] and they are in no particular order relative to the physical
> >arrangement.
>
> No way :-)
>
> If it was using screen 1, that's broken, it should use screen 0 (I still
> have been using my distro kde2.2 kdm, so I can't comment. ksplash at least
> got it right, until today). Feel free to fix that. But the screens are
> *not* random, they are in a very specific order relative to the physical
> arrangement - whichever one you picked when you did your XF86Config file.
> Please don't break this for those of us who have Xinerama configured :-)
>
> >For those who don't understand, consider the following Xinerama config:
> >
> >Head#3   Head#2  Head#1  Head#0
> >
> >The mouse cursor will appear on Head#0 but the menu (if any), kicker, etc
> >will appear on Head#3.  That's lots of mouse tracking to get to Head#3.
>
> For instance, with my desk setup as it is, I want kicker/ksplash/kdm etc on
> the monitor right in front of me, so I do. Kicker is totally stupid about
> Xinerama now, I admit, but that's no excuse for breaking other apps to
> coordinate with it's broken behavior :-) One can move it to either edge,
> drag the icons around, or change which head is primary, in the meantime.
> Hopefully someone will fix this right for 3.1, but right now it can mostly
> be worked around. Your changes to other apps to make them ignore the
> Xinerama settings can't be.
>
> Section "ServerLayout"
>         Identifier      "Default Layout"
>         Screen          "NEC Screen"
>         Screen          "Dell Screen" LeftOf "NEC Screen"
>         InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
>         InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
>         Option          "Xinerama"
> EndSection
>
> ie, primary (screen 0) in front of me, secondary head to the left of it,
> tucked into the corner of the room. One can use LeftOf, RightOf, and any
> number of other variations to get the arrangement you want. The one listed
> first is primaryScreen().
>
> >This patch makes a new default, -1, and this makes kdm go to the screen
> > with (0,0).  It also goes to this screen if the parameter is out of
> > range.
>
> Please set it to zero, and fix ksplash and any other apps you broke the
> Xinerama handling in. If you need help fixing your XF86Config-4 (ie, the
> model I gave you is not enough to get them to show on your left screen if
> that's what you want), come on in #kde-users and I'll walk you through it.

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