Xfce Forum

jerry1970

Member

Registered: 2017-06-27

Posts: 24

panels with different monitor setups

At the office I have two external 24" monitors and at home I have a single external large 4K monitor. I work 2 days from home so switch several times per week. I am very glad with the display profiles to store the settings (monitor size, relative location) depending on what I connect to. But I have a question about the panels in a situation like this.

I prefer to have a panel on each monitor.

First "problem" was I had to configure each panel like the first one. I assume there is some config file I can copy to duplicate a panel?

Second, some indicator plugins (status tray, power management, and especially the keyboard layout), are disabled for any but the first panel. Is there a reason for that?

Third and most importantly in this case of changing monitor setup so often, is that I would like to switch between layouts quickly. If I have three panels, the single large monitor at home has two panels on top of each other which is not ideal.

So I was looking for ways to make it easier to switch or set the configuration, probably a shell script so I can make a launcher. I found the

xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel

command but showing/hiding a panel was not one of the options. What would be a good way to do this?

(I have read the sticky https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=8619 but the show/hide was not there)

Would it be possible to link the display profile to a script like that?

Thanks!
Jerry

Last edited by jerry1970 (2024-04-24 07:08:34)

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,485

Re: panels with different monitor setups

First "problem" was I had to configure each panel like the first one. I assume there is some config file I can copy to duplicate a panel?

Unfortunately there is no such functionality to easily duplicate a panel. The config file is $HOME/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-panel.xml, but it shouldn't be edited manually unless you are not logged into Xfce and xfconfd is not running. Even then, you'll need to figure out what to duplicate and the changes to make. It won't be easy.

Second, some indicator plugins (status tray, power management, and especially the keyboard layout), are disabled for any but the first panel. Is there a reason for that?

They can't be duplicated because it doesn't make sense to duplicate it (you can only have one system tray). Also see https://gitlab.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-panel/-/issues/488

Third and most importantly in this case of changing monitor setup so often, is that I would like to switch between layouts quickly. If I have three panels, the single large monitor at home has two panels on top of each other which is not ideal.

So I was looking for ways to make it easier to switch or set the configuration, probably a shell script so I can make a launcher. I found the

xfconf-query -c xfce4-panel

command but showing/hiding a panel was not one of the options. What would be a good way to do this?

xfconf-query and xfce4-panel-profiles is the way to go here. xfconf-query to change the ActiveProfile setting, and xfce4-panel-profiles to load the appropriate panel layout.

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eriefisher

Member

From: ON, Canada

Registered: 2008-10-25

Posts: 528

Re: panels with different monitor setups

Sounds like it would almost be easier to create two separate users. A home user and a office user and just share the data internally. Each user would be setup with the screens and panel configuration you want in that environment.

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