Is it possible to configure KDE to allow spanning windows over multiple virtual desktops?

This is really a killer feature I cannot live without.
There are some things I regularly use it for:
-viewing and editing files with long lines (spreadsheets, sometimes badly formatted source code)
-carefully studying details of large high-resolution images (construction engineering work, valuation and determining structural soundness)
-writing code, where I like to be able to oversee longer sections than a screen height easily

For all these thing it's extremely helpful to be able to span windows over some adjacent virtual desktops.
You can view and edit the complete thing easily by just slight mouse moves over the virtual screen corners.
Result: Less mental distraction, better concentration and working mood.

Compare this with the tedious scrolling actions (i.e. clicking, dragging forth and back endlessly) if window size is limited to the monitor resolution...

FVWM has this feature since decades. Even Gnome has it.
But, in the KDE configuration dialogs I didn't find any option which turns on this feature

So my question:
Is it impossible doing this using KDE ? (maybe because of conceptual limitations?)
Or, is there any way to enable windows spanning over virtual screens? (maybe by manually editing some config file?)

I love KDE - it looks great, is highly-configurable!
So, I would be so happy if such window spanning is possible with KDE!
So that I don't have to abandon KDE evaluation now, only to go back to ancient-looking FVWM...
Thank you in advance!

Are you referring to virtual resolutions?

Code: Select all

xrandr --output DVI-I-1  --panning 3840x2400

what gets you a huge screen with the monitor as viewport that shifts by moving the mouse towards the borders?
Notice to replace DVI-I-1 by an actual available output.

Or is this about a multiscreen setup (and maximized windows) - in that case "kcmshell4 kwinscripts" allows you load a "Video Wall" script that spans maximized windows across all screens.

If you're actually refferring to virtual desktops:
A window can according to the NETWM spec be on one virtual desktop or all, "some" is not supported.
So the windows would have to be moved to the other VD and repositioned with the desktop change.
KDE traditionally implements the VDs as stack, not as area (or "large desktop"), but this could likely be added through scripting.

NetWM spec:
http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spe ... largedesks

Luebking, many thanks for your assistance!
Please apologize, I am not familiar with the correct terminology.
It's a single-monitor configuration, so there is no spanning between several monitor viewports.
Maybe a picture explains best what I mean and for which kinds of things I use the feature.



Movement between these virtual viewports is by moving mouse across corners and by ctrl-arrow keys.

However, when moving windows, unlike in FVWM, in KDE the window doesn't overlap the adjacent viewports as you see in the pager image above.
When I move a window in KDE, it doesn't "enter" respective overlap the adjacent viewport(s).
It just gets clipped off by the current viewports' boundaries!

When googling around before opening this thread I actually found Gnome users complaining because it confused them to have a window in part on one viewport (desktop? screen?) and adjacent one(s).
Thus I thought maybe this feature could have been disabled in KDE by default, because complaints of people who got confused?!?

So, I'd really be glad if this is possible to do using KDE.


P.S.:
By the way, I also didn't find the option I remember from earlier KDE versions I tried looong ago, which allowed to assign every virtual screen (viewport) a different background color or image.
Maybe this also confused people and was thus removed?
I really like this feature as I have different color tints for every virtual screen associated with the type of work I do on these.
All this can be fine-tuned in fvwmrc, so I think this could possibly still be done by hand-editing some KDE config files?

Ok, that's more like the "large desktop" or "virtual desktops as area" thing, so actually about virtual desktops.
KDE/KWin has never had such, I guess the reason to go for the stack rather than the area is that latter will cause trouble with panels (ie. if you got a panel on the bottom and a window spanning two "vertical" virtual desktops, the window would partially be covered by the panel on the "upper" virtual desktop)

I'm pretty sure that the behavior could be added as a kwin script (it will be necessary to on VD changes inspect the entire window stack, move all "intersecting" windows to the current desktop and reverse their position) - not trivial, though.

Btw, no idea about Mutter - but Metacity doesn't do this either.
fvwm2 implements it as additional feature to virtual desktops (ie. if you change the virtual desktop by scrolling the desktop or so, it doesn't happen, but only crossing the screen edge does this) - this would not be possible via kwin scripting, since the electric border just changes the VD.


Reg. the wallpapers, plasma-desktop didn't allow this since 4.0, iirc the reason was that this would require multiple desktop windows (likely justified by things like the desktop grid)
It's therefore only supported if you bind activities to virtual desktops (and then can have a completely different desktop w/ panels and clocks and whatnot)

PS: http://akreuzkamp.de/2012/01/04/rethink ... -desktops/
This might be of your interest.

KWin Script to follow the fvwm approach in kwin:
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=163224

I want to add, that although Kwin will not allow setting window size bigger than screen by default it can be overwhelmed with the window rules.