A couple of panel issues

headpiece · 2024-11-05 23:23:06

I have two issues with panels I can't seem to be able to solve.
- When I use an app in fullscreen (let's say a video player), if I unfocus it by doing something else on my second monitor, panels go over the fullscreen app. When the app is focused fullscreen works as intended and correctly hide the panels.
- I want to mirror a panel between two monitors. Not just copy, not redo, I want a true mirror, so that when I change it on one monitor I don't have to do the same thing on the second one. Basically I'm looking for the same behavior as the Windows 10 task bar.

eriefisher · 2024-11-05 23:56:09

You can set up "margins" to prevent window from over/under lapping the panels.

Settings>>Workspaces>>Margins

When setting up a secondary monitor you should have been able to select how and where it's displayed. Extended, mirrored, cloned, to the left or right etc.

headpiece · 2024-11-06 11:02:58

Thank you for answering.

For the 1st question, read what I said again. Margins don't solve my issue, because I specifically want the fullscreen mode to not be overlapped by panels. Fullscreen by definition takes the whole screen space so margins aren't relevant.

For the 2nd question, I don't want my monitors to be a mirror of each other, I want them to be independent, but with a mirrored panel.

ToZ · 2024-11-06 11:40:19

This might be a useful read regarding #1.

headpiece · 2024-11-06 14:06:48

Thanks, it was 2 years ago and a fix was discussed in that thread, I assume it hasn't been done/merged yet

Last edited by headpiece (2024-11-06 14:07:05)

ToZ · 2024-11-07 00:42:51

The fix didn't address your issue::

When I use an app in fullscreen (let's say a video player), if I unfocus it by doing something else on my second monitor, panels go over the fullscreen app

...the developer stated:

This is on purpose, I am not willing to change that sorry.

The reason is quite simple really, full screen windows are placed on a layer above all others, hiding all other windows.
When the focus is moved to another window, they keep hiding those other windows, including the one with keyboard focus.
To avoid this, the window manager automatically demotes the full screen window back to their original layer in the stack.

headpiece · 2024-11-07 01:04:23

You should read the rest of the thread:

Makes sense. But, how other window managers manage to make it work? Isn't it possible to make full screen apps stay in the layer above all other windows unless there is an app with focus in the same display or make apps that occupy all screen always stay above xfce4-panel?

I don't know about all other window managers, but in the case of GNOME Shell/mutter, the top bar is automatically hidden when there is a fullscreen window on the primary output.
Maybe xfce4-panel could do the same.

That would fix the issue.

ToZ · 2024-11-07 01:11:47

Fair enough, but it just hung there. It doesn't look like there was any follow up with xfce4-panel. Searching the xfce4-panel bug reports, I find https://gitlab.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-panel/-/issues/136. I don't think this issue is resolved.

headpiece · 2024-11-07 11:59:13

Thanks to your link I found out that there was actually a fix, it's weird that it's not in the public release yet though:

https://gitlab.xfce.org/xfce/xfwm4/-/co … 6e1dc306c4
https://gitlab.xfce.org/xfce/xfwm4/-/co … cbefd1c92d

Last edited by headpiece (2024-11-07 11:59:47)

ToZ · 2024-11-07 14:41:21

Interesting, but I'm not sure I'm reading it the same way you are. The first link I think refers to "focus follows mouse" setting. Are you using that? The second is regarding multiple screens, not multiple displays. But perhaps I'm mistaken.

Regardless, are you able to build xfwm4 from source so you can test it out and see? I don't have a secondary monitor readily available now, but could test it out next week if needed.

headpiece · 2024-11-07 15:03:20

It's a two birds with one stone situation the way I'm reading it.

The issue I'm experiencing with panel overlapping comes from the fact that when a window loses focuses, it restacks itself so that other windows can go on top of it, even if it's fullscreened. This restacking is what causes the panel overlapping.

But this restacking also caused a bug with the "focus follow mouse" mode, and they fixed it by making the window restack ONLY when the focus is lost to a another window overlapping it. Which should also address my issue indirectly.

So yeah I'm going to try it out in a few hours when I'm home, and keep you posted.

Added later 3 h 39 min 28 s:
It is merged in the codebase already so yeah this fix doesn't work for my issue.
I tried to compile xfwm 4.19 (I had 4.18) but no luck either.

Last edited by headpiece (2024-11-07 15:04:14)

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#1 2024-11-05 23:23:06

A couple of panel issues

#2 2024-11-05 23:56:09

Re: A couple of panel issues

#3 2024-11-06 11:02:58

Re: A couple of panel issues

#4 2024-11-06 11:40:19

Re: A couple of panel issues

#5 2024-11-06 14:06:48

Re: A couple of panel issues

#6 2024-11-07 00:42:51

Re: A couple of panel issues

#7 2024-11-07 01:04:23

Re: A couple of panel issues

#8 2024-11-07 01:11:47

Re: A couple of panel issues

#9 2024-11-07 11:59:13

Re: A couple of panel issues

#10 2024-11-07 14:41:21

Re: A couple of panel issues

#11 2024-11-07 15:03:20

Re: A couple of panel issues

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