Newbie - managing workspaces on 3 monitors

cootcraig · 2014-12-07 17:08:01

I'm in the process of setting up my work and home
computers with 3 monitors. I would like to do a
fresh install of Debian Jessie selecting xfce
as the desktop environment. Jessie installs xfce 4.10

I've never had more than 1 monitor before so I need
some education on doing this.

What I want to do.

Drive 3 monitors.
Have many workspaces.
Assign each workspace to a monitor.
Applications can be run in / moved to a workspace.
A way to manage this.

How would I do this in xfce 4.10?

ToZ · 2014-12-07 20:15:43

Welcome. A few comments:

Proper multi-monitor support was introduced post-4.10, so you'll have to rely on xrandr/arandr (or xorg configuration (or proprietary tools if using an ATI or nvidia driver)) tools to get it set up properly.

If you extend the display over the 3 monitors (e.g. each monitor is 1024x768, then display viewport is 3072x1024) then you'll end up with 3 monitors each displaying a piece of the overall viewport. You can then have multiple workspaces (each spanning the length of the viewport and displaying only the portion of the workspace. The only caveat is that you can't mix and match displays and workspaces meaning you can't display workspace 1 on monitor 1 and workspace 2 on monitor 2. Each monitor will display the same workspace number.

You can start individual apps in the different display using the --geometry parameter. For example, to display xfce4-terminal on the second display:

xfce4-terminal --geometry 134x24+1400+200

...(where +1400 will be located in the second monitor's viewport) or this might work as well:

DISPLAY=:0.1 xfce4-terminal

To start applications in different workspaces, you'll need to use a utility like devilspie or wmctrl.

sixsixfive · 2014-12-07 20:39:23

>Assign each workspace to a monitor.

afaik this isn't possible with xfwm, but it should work with http://awesome.naquadah.org

cootcraig · 2014-12-07 20:54:43

sixsixfive wrote:

>Assign each workspace to a monitor.
afaik this isn't possible with xfwm, but it should work with http://awesome.naquadah.org

Well this is what I want to know before I attempt this. From the other
replay I gather that xfwm could span all three monitors. However, I
want independent displays with separate workspaces displaying on each.

I would probably like using awesome instead of xfwm. I would also
consider trying out a >4.10 xfce if that were reasonable.

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#1 2014-12-07 17:08:01

Newbie - managing workspaces on 3 monitors

#2 2014-12-07 20:15:43

Re: Newbie - managing workspaces on 3 monitors

#3 2014-12-07 20:39:23

Re: Newbie - managing workspaces on 3 monitors

#4 2014-12-07 20:54:43

Re: Newbie - managing workspaces on 3 monitors

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