Icon and application placement problems.

Perthil · 2026-05-22 23:35:59

I use Xubuntu 26.04 and Xfce 4.20.

I have a laptop with 2 external displays. One is at the right of the laptop and the other one at the left. I want to have the panel and the desktop icons only on the primary display. All displays have 1920x1200, but the left one and the laptop have a scale of 1.25.

If no external display is connected, the primary display is the laptop. If there is the laptop and the display at the right, the primary display is the right one. And if there are both external displays connected the primary display is the left one. I made 3 profiles for this. I also enabled the relevant options in the panel and display settings.

But if I connect only the right display the icons are not moved, but the panel is moved. I can move the icons to the right display if I stop the desktop, delete "~/.config/xfce4/desktop" and then start the desktop again. Then the icons are on the right display as long as I do not disconnect the right display (also logout or shutdown do not move them). If doing so, they are moved to the laptop. This is ok, but if I reconnect the right display they stay on the laptop.

Now lets talk about the left display. This display is only used if the right display is also used. If I have the icons on the right display and connect the left one happens the same, the panel is moved to the left display, but the icons stay. I can move the icons to the left display doing the same as above. But If I disconnect the right display, the panel is moved to the right display and the icons to the laptop. Some applications (those were before the disconnect at the right display e.g. xfce4-terminal) are no more visible, they are moved to the right of the right display. Others are moved correctly.

If the left display is connected all applications on the right display are moved to the laptop. It is ok moving applications to another display if disconnecting it, but, in my opinion, its not ok to move them as long as the display where they are is connected.

So, there are three problems:

desktop icons are not moved if a new display is connected (but this worked with Xubuntu 24.04)

connecting the left display applications are moved to another display although their display is not switched off

disconnecting the left display some applications are moved outside the visible area of the right display

For the icons I found a workaround (deleting the display directory and restart the display), but I don't know where to place this so that it works automatically.
Can somebody give me an idea how I can do this? Or is there another solution?

The application movement, in my opinion, is caused by the recalculation of the screen area which is necessary if a display is connected at the left. But the position of the applications is not recalculated (in case of connect) or recalculated wrong (in case of disconnect).
Is there a possibility to change this behavior without changing the display code?

Thanks in advance. Best regards.

ToZ · 2026-05-23 14:08:36

Is this bug report similar to what you are seeing?

For the icons I found a workaround (deleting the display directory and restart the display), but I don't know where to place this so that it works automatically.
Can somebody give me an idea how I can do this? Or is there another solution?

What do you mean by "deleting the display directory"? Do you mean the displays.xml file? How are you restarting the display?

The application movement, in my opinion, is caused by the recalculation of the screen area which is necessary if a display is connected at the left. But the position of the applications is not recalculated (in case of connect) or recalculated wrong (in case of disconnect).
Is there a possibility to change this behavior without changing the display code?

Probably not. You should create a bug report.

Can you provide exact versions of xfdesktop and xfce4-settings?

xfdesktop -V
xfce4-settings -V

Perthil · 2026-05-23 17:36:24

ToZ wrote:

Is this bug report similar to what you are seeing?

It seems so. But today I had some icons on the laptop and others on the right display. I will try to downgrade xfdisplay.

For the icons I found a workaround (deleting the display directory and restart the display), but I don't know where to place this so that it works automatically.
Can somebody give me an idea how I can do this? Or is there another solution?

What do you mean by "deleting the display directory"? Do you mean the displays.xml file? How are you restarting the display?

I delete the directory ~/.config/xfce4/desktop. The script I use is:

#! /bin/bash
pkill -f xfdesktop
mv ~/.config/xfce4/desktop ~/desktop-backup-$(date +%s) 2>/dev/null || true
sleep 0.5
DISPLAY=:0 xfdesktop &

The application movement, in my opinion, is caused by the recalculation of the screen area which is necessary if a display is connected at the left. But the position of the applications is not recalculated (in case of connect) or recalculated wrong (in case of disconnect).
Is there a possibility to change this behavior without changing the display code?
Probably not. You should create a bug report.

This problem is not only in xfce 4.20. it was also in the former used version (I think it was 4.18 od Xubuntu24.04).
How is it intended to work? May be its not an error but as designed.

Can you provide exact versions of xfdesktop and xfce4-settings?

xfdesktop -V:
Dieses ist xfdesktop Version 4.20.1, auf Xfce 4.20.
Erstellt mit GTK+ 3.24.50, verknüpft mit GTK+ 3.24.52.
Optionen bei der Erstellung:
Schreibtischmenü: aktiviert
Schreibtischsymbole: aktiviert
Schreibtischdateisymbole: aktiviert

xfce4-settings -V:
There is no xfce4-settings executable. Only xfce4-display-settings which starts the display dialog.
I found the file xfce4-desktop.xml in ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-per-channel:

<?xml version="1.1" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<channel name="xfce4-desktop" version="1.0">
  <property name="desktop-icons" type="empty">
    <property name="style" type="empty"/>
    <property name="file-icons" type="empty">
      <property name="show-home" type="empty"/>
      <property name="show-filesystem" type="empty"/>
      <property name="show-removable" type="empty"/>
      <property name="show-trash" type="empty"/>
    </property>
    <property name="icon-size" type="empty"/>
    <property name="tooltip-size" type="empty"/>
    <property name="primary" type="bool" value="true"/>
  </property>
  <property name="desktop-menu" type="empty">
    <property name="show" type="empty"/>
  </property>
  <property name="last" type="empty">
    <property name="window-width" type="int" value="785"/>
    <property name="window-height" type="int" value="559"/>
  </property>
</channel>

My be this helps?

ToZ · 2026-05-23 17:56:29

Sorry, I meant:

xfsettingsd -V

I want to see if there have been any relevant patches after the version you have.

For xfdesktop, there have been some commits since the version you are running (4.20.1 (2025-02-17)).

There is also a setting in the desktop settings on the Desktop Icon tabs that forces icons on the primary display, but I see that you have that set.

It might be that you need to create a bug report.

Perthil · 2026-05-23 22:29:21

ToZ wrote:

Sorry, I meant:
xfsettingsd -V

The output is:
xfsettingsd 4.20.1 (Xfce 4.20)

You also said that it is not possible to change the behavior of xfdesktop without changing the code.
So, there are no additional configurations for this.

But, after more searching, I found a script named movescreen.py. This script moves a window
to another display and, if necessary, resizes the window.

So it is possible to write a script which rearranges all open applications on the desktop.
May be this can be a workaround.

May be its possible to call such a script after xfdesktop was informed of the display change.
I don't know whether you can have more consumers than only one for this event and if you
can define the order the consumers are called. If not you can call this script manually.
May be this script can move the icons too.

ToZ · 2026-05-23 23:24:53

The problem is that there is no "hook" that you can tie into that would notify you that xfdesktop has noticed a display change. Sure, you can use a script (like the one you found) to move windows around if you manually trigger it. I think the issue here is that the screen changes aren't properly being recognized by either xfdesktop or xfce4-settings (or both) and thats why the issues are happening.

Here are the xfce4-settings updates that have been made (you have version 4.20.1 and its at 4.20.4. I'm not sure how you would update the version of Xubuntu - I believe the ubuntu distros use PPAs - perhaps there is one you can use that has a more up-to-date version. All of this is so you can test if the bug has already been fixed.

I still think you're best bet is to create a bug report (start with xfdesktop) and see what the developers say.

Added later 02 min 43 s:
Here is the ubuntu launchpad bug list for xfce4-desktop. Might be worth reviewing the list to see if there is something is relevant. You could create the bug report here as well.

Added later 07 min 53 s:
Here is a discussion on this forum where code is providing to create a program to monitor for display changes. You could use this as part of a greater script to manage window/icon locations.

Perthil · 2026-05-24 19:03:39

ToZ wrote:

The problem is that there is no "hook" that you can tie into that would notify you that xfdesktop has noticed a display change. Sure, you can use a script (like the one you found) to move windows around if you manually trigger it. I think the issue here is that the screen changes aren't properly being recognized by either xfdesktop or xfce4-settings (or both) and thats why the issues are happening.

But you can set that xfdesktop does nothing on display changes, and use an udev rule isn't it?

First I will try to update xfce in Xubuntu26.04. There are some changes in handling display changes, but I am not sure if they resolve the problem.

There is another problem too. Sometimes the panel size is not subtracted from the display height, then the panel hides icons and apps.
This is not new it also exists in Xubunt24.04. Workaround: restarting the panel.

Isn't there anybody else using multiple displays, having the same problems?

Thank you.

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#1 2026-05-22 23:35:59

Icon and application placement problems.

#2 2026-05-23 14:08:36

Re: Icon and application placement problems.

#3 2026-05-23 17:36:24

Re: Icon and application placement problems.

#4 2026-05-23 17:56:29

Re: Icon and application placement problems.

#5 2026-05-23 22:29:21

Re: Icon and application placement problems.

#6 2026-05-23 23:24:53

Re: Icon and application placement problems.

#7 2026-05-24 19:03:39

Re: Icon and application placement problems.

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