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#1 2018-01-21 20:17:23

babag
Member
Registered: 2018-01-21
Posts: 24

desktop display issue - new icons off screen

posted this on the ubuntu forum. not sure if this is the right place or that is.

having an issue with the xfce desktop. using ubuntu studio, fresh install of current version.

when i create new launchers they appear off screen and i have to reposition my display through the settings manager to find them. in addition to new launchers, sometimes windows op[en off screen or partially off screen, such as with their title bars off screen so they can't be accessed to drag them so as to be fully visible.

of three attempted installs, i tried avlinux and kxstudio as well, ubuntu studio was the only one that seemed to correctly detect my four-monitor setup. i'm working with multimedia so this setup is critical. ubuntu has been great with the exception of the off-screen thing. i've linked two screenshots to illustrate the issue. it looks like the system is defining the desktop as the combined height and width of my entire display layout, which is, of course, not quite right. there are empty areas on either side of the upper display. by defining the desktop by combined height/width the system thinks it can place icons in the upper left area, which is off screen.

the first screenshot shows my normal display positioning. the second shows how i have to reposition the upper display to find or access off screen items.

how do i fix this?

thanks,
BabaG

25954846868_8abfd03b7f_b.jpgDisplay_setup_normal by BabaG01, on Flickr
39118292814_9e096d7fe7_b.jpgDisplay_setup_find_icons by BabaG01, on Flickr

Last edited by babag (2018-01-22 02:44:39)

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#2 2018-01-22 07:16:42

MountainDewManiac
Member
From: Where Mr. Bankruptcy is Prez
Registered: 2013-03-24
Posts: 1,115

Re: desktop display issue - new icons off screen

babag wrote:

in addition to new launchers, sometimes windows op[en off screen or partially off screen, such as with their title bars off screen so they can't be accessed to drag them so as to be fully visible.

I can't solve your issue, but for the above, you can also move a window by right-clicking on its Window Buttons representation (if you use that panel applet) and selecting the Move option, or by placing your mouse cursor anywhere within that window, holding down your Alt key AND your left mouse button, and moving your mouse cursor.

Hope this helps until you can solve the problem!

Regards,
MDM


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#3 2018-01-22 23:35:40

babag
Member
Registered: 2018-01-21
Posts: 24

Re: desktop display issue - new icons off screen

thanks for the response, MDM. i'm not sure what this part means, though:

MountainDewManiac wrote:

...its Window Buttons representation (if you use that panel applet)...

do you have any more specifics? what this is called? i'd like to look into it. it sounds like a good tip.

thanks gain,
BabaG

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#4 2018-01-23 01:42:22

ToZ
Administrator
From: Canada
Registered: 2011-06-02
Posts: 10,948

Re: desktop display issue - new icons off screen

What versions of xfce4-settings:

xfsettings -V

...xfce4-panel:

xfce4-panel -V

...and xfwm4:

xfwm4 -V

...are you running?

This might be a bug to be addressed via the bug tracker.


Please remember to mark your thread [SOLVED] to make it easier for others to find
--- How To Ask For Help | FAQ | Developer Wiki  |  Community | Contribute ---

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#5 2018-01-23 01:47:45

MountainDewManiac
Member
From: Where Mr. Bankruptcy is Prez
Registered: 2013-03-24
Posts: 1,115

Re: desktop display issue - new icons off screen

babag wrote:

do you have any more specifics?

3214232e6917c6bd187bb987ec28cd545579b431a7c1c89a6924c0fb25bf0a9d3c4f29510eb2fcf368d3ba06474fb3e749bcef546a71a6f8.php

2765928ba311e959187bb987ec28cd54b4aff88b60a637366924c0fb25bf0a9d3c4f29510eb2fcf368d3ba06474fb3e74015bc3881c38d91.php

babag wrote:

what this is called?

Window Buttons.

3fd612d5368f138e187bb987ec28cd5424fbdbce65b01f826924c0fb25bf0a9d3c4f29510eb2fcf368d3ba06474fb3e7af39f4997607d467.php

Regards,
MDM


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How to Ask for Help <=== Click on this link

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#6 2018-01-31 20:17:35

CwF
Member
Registered: 2018-01-28
Posts: 287

Re: desktop display issue - new icons off screen

In a different way I have the same problem. In that second graphic, screen 3 has its upper left corner at 0,0. In the first graphic it doesn't, 0,0 is still over there in no mans land. From screen 1, screen 4 takes 0,0 to the left, and screen 3 takes 0,0 north but adds no info of width. As far as I can tell the desktop is a rectangle only with no positioning within, so you have a dead spot above screen 2 also that you could hide something! With a similar setup  with some screens flipping input sources to external screens, I use a combo of x2vnc or x2x and found this rectangle rule. In the above example option -north would not be available, -east and -west would not work, and only - south would...Difficult to explain and if you use neither of these mouse region mapping utilities what I said makes no sense, but it does expose the rectangle desktop theory! For example if you random staggered the monitors, the desktop will always be a rectangle big enough to surround the display area and will include dead space in the region. For me panels also randomly displace when I change things up. Sometimes they move, sometimes not. It gets really complicated when I reposition or disable a screen with a x2x or x2vnc mapping active = you can get into function that is lost on a reboot = like it treats the mapping as a screen dynamically, and one that is not there yet on reboot. Anyway, it's my take the behavior you've found seems to be how it works!

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#7 2018-05-05 17:20:43

babag
Member
Registered: 2018-01-21
Posts: 24

Re: desktop display issue - new icons off screen

i solved the issue by switching to kde. problem is i want to use xfce. stumbled back on this thread in looking for solutions.

@MDM the solution can be helpful unless a window is completely off screen. thanks, though. i've seen a script floating around someplace that moves an active window to the next screen (something also built in to kde). that may be a better solution but who knows what pitfalls that holds. thanks.

@ToZ

xfsettings -V

Command 'xfsettings' not found, did you mean:

  command 'xfsettingsd' from deb xfce4-settings

Try: sudo apt install <deb name>
xfce4-panel -V
xfce4-panel 4.12.2 (Xfce 4.12)

Copyright (c) 2004-2011
	The Xfce development team. All rights reserved.
xfwm4 -V
	This is xfwm4 version 4.12.4 (revision 7844952) for Xfce 4.12
	Released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
	Compiled against GTK+-2.24.31, using GTK+-2.24.32.

	Build configuration and supported features:
	- Startup notification support:                 Yes
	- XSync support:                                Yes
	- Render support:                               Yes
	- Xrandr support:                               Yes
	- Embedded compositor:                          Yes
	- KDE systray proxy (deprecated):               No

seems to me like restricting the display to a rectangle is like 80s level computing compared to today's environment. i mean... really? and let's not even start on the inability to locate icons on any screen at any place (AND have them stay there).

thanks,
BabaG

Last edited by babag (2018-05-05 17:23:01)

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#8 2018-05-05 17:34:59

MountainDewManiac
Member
From: Where Mr. Bankruptcy is Prez
Registered: 2013-03-24
Posts: 1,115

Re: desktop display issue - new icons off screen

babag wrote:

MDM the solution can be helpful unless a window is completely off screen.

It's weird that you even have this issue, IMHO. Only time I ever had it, I was trying to use a thing that stated a 1024*768 monitor was required, and I was only able to provide 800*600. And that wasn't "completely off screen," it was just bigger than my physical display, which was kind of annoying (the "go ahead" button I needed to click on wasn't visible).

Any chance that your settings/configuration might be "AFU" somewhere, causing your OS to be operating as if your monitor/display has a different resolution than it actually does?

babag wrote:

seems to me like restricting the display to a rectangle is like 80s level computing compared to today's environment.

I must be stuck in the '80s, then, lol, because I haven't seen much in the way of circular, triangular, etc. displays. To date, none. And I'm still waiting on that tesseract upgrade wink .

Regards,
MDM


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#9 2018-05-05 17:51:12

babag
Member
Registered: 2018-01-21
Posts: 24

Re: desktop display issue - new icons off screen

:-)  mobius would be good.

edit: i wonder if editing something here:

~/.config/xfce4/desktop/

might be useful. i have three files there:

icons.screen0-5024x3169.rc 
icons.screen0-8864x2119.rc
icons.screen0-5024x3194.rc

icons.screen0-5024x3169.rc contains data relevant to icon position:

[xfdesktop-version-4.10.3+-rcfile_format]
4.10.3+=true

[/home/babag/Desktop/kxstudio-repos-gcc5_9.5.1~kxstudio3_all.deb]
row=3
col=0

[/home/babag/Desktop/kxstudio-repos_9.5.1~kxstudio3_all.deb]
row=4
col=0

[Trash]
row=0
col=0

[/]
row=1
col=0

[/home/babag]
row=2
col=0

i tried changing the one at row 4 to row 6 and after logging back in it had moved. tried changing it to 12 and it reverted to row 4.

thanks,
BabaG

Last edited by babag (2018-05-05 18:04:47)

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#10 2018-05-06 04:20:49

babag
Member
Registered: 2018-01-21
Posts: 24

Re: desktop display issue - new icons off screen

then there's this: 41020039505_45b90a8eeb_z.jpgDesktop_2018-05-05_20-43-55_scaled by BabaG01, on Flickr

i thought i'd see if there were enough icons to fill the desktop and beyond it might push the overflow onto another monitor. i think it's revealed a second way xfce is dealing with display space.

(one thing that's different since the first post in this thread is that i now have the number three monitor set to 3840x2160 hence the taller column of icons relative to the graphic at the beginning of the thread.)

notice the pattern of 15x9 icons repeats, then becomes 20 high. i stopped pasting dummy icons when i saw this. i'm guessing that this means that, while display space is defined as a big rectangle, regardless of the layout of the monitors, for icons there is another way of defining the display space based on the monitor numbers. my guess would be that the first two sets of 15x9 represent two of the smaller monitors. the taller batch represents the large monitor. i assume that if i had kept pasting i'd have eventually filled the third group at 20 high and moved on to the third monitor.

the odd thing about this is the mismatch. the display settings allow me to define a rectangle with one monitor above the others. the icon setup seems to always define the display space as the various ports laid out side by side. seems like reconciling these two ways of looking at the space would go a long way to improving desktop icon handling. seems funny that the system knows where the upper left is but thinks it's one of the smaller monitors. compare the attached desktop photo here with the ones at the start of this post.

thanks,
BabaG

Last edited by babag (2018-05-06 04:29:16)

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#11 2018-05-06 05:01:06

MountainDewManiac
Member
From: Where Mr. Bankruptcy is Prez
Registered: 2013-03-24
Posts: 1,115

Re: desktop display issue - new icons off screen

Interesting. Have you looked at the source code of (I assume) xfwm to see how it's doing what it's doing?

Regards,
MDM


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#12 2018-05-06 07:07:16

babag
Member
Registered: 2018-01-21
Posts: 24

Re: desktop display issue - new icons off screen

and now this, which makes much of this irrelevant. and it's as goofy as everything else (gotta love open source and linux).

it seems that you can put panels anywhere you like and they remember their position! who knew? icons no, panels yes.

i usually use icons on my desktop for categorized launchers, things i access a lot and don't want to type in a command for or go fishing though menus for: system, intertubes, audio, video, accessories. panel  icons can be displayed as icons or text and the panel has an alpha channel which makes its background invisible. that means i can replicate my working environment of rows of launchers and have it look (pretty much) like what i'm used to!

only thing that bugs me about this now is that each launcher is just an icon. i'd really like to have text under it just as a reminder in case i haven't used something in a while. second thing is bigger but something i'm sure there's a way around. i just haven't been on this system long enough to have learned it.

it seems that the panels are 'always on top.' there's a short command or script to fix that:

wmctrl -r :SELECT: -b add,below

that allows the user to click on the panel they want to be behind instead of 'always on top.' i need to figure out how to tell this script which specific panels to put behind and run it at log in. once i can get that happening i think the icon problem may be solved. way more complicated than just right-clicking the desktop and dropping a link but for a one time setup i can live with it.

as for looking at the source code, i'm no where near that good. i can poke around the way things work and find patterns of behavior and sometimes debug like that but i can't code worth beans.

thanks and i'll keep poking around at this. (they really should reconcile some of these things. just because i can find a way around it is no reason to leave untidy things like this out there.)

thanks,
BabaG

Last edited by babag (2018-05-06 07:17:37)

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