If this has been asked before, my apologies, I did search (some).

I'm using 4.4.3, which came with Slackware-64 13.1 (I think). This past week I got a second monitor to use with this system.

What I want to do:

I want 6 desktops on the monitor on the left, and six on the right.
I want to be able to move from one monitor to the other.
I would like to change the default behavior of switching between virtual desktops to be ONLY switch desktops on whichever monitor I'm on.

Sure, I can pin stuff to all desktops, then I'll always get the stuff on the right there, however, I keep different things in different virtual desktops.

Will this work with 4.4.3? If not, is there a version of KDE that allows this behavior?

Thanks in advance for any info you can give me.
Andy

Multi-monitor setups were a bit of a pain in kde before the 4.7 release. So, if at all possible, consider updating your installation.

I want 6 desktops on the monitor on the left, and six on the right.

Easy enough. You can do this right from the pager on the panel or head to System Settings.

I want to be able to move from one monitor to the other.

Meaning, I suppose that you don't want to run separate X servers on each monitor.

I would like to change the default behavior of switching between virtual desktops to be ONLY switch desktops on whichever monitor I'm on.

Short answer: not possible afaik. But you can use activities.

Long answer: Doesn't that make it confusing? Say I have a window on the first desktop on the left monitor and am looking at the third desktop of the right monitor. If I move the window from the left monitor to the right, it should move to the right half of the first desktop. However, I'm not looking at it right now, so basically, the window just disappears till I switch desktops on the right monitor.

I think I like the idea of keeping the left and right halves of the desktop together so the desktop changes on both monitors when I switch to a new desktop. And unless I'm wrong, this is the only possible way in kde. Your best option, as you mentioned, is to pin windows on the left monitor.

EDIT: I just realized that you could use activities and solve this partially. Instead of six virtual desktops, have six activities on the left and right. So, you're still on the same (and only) virtual desktop, but you've mapped the scroll to switch activities instead of desktops. This should let you switch activities independently on each monitor... I haven't tested this, though.

karthikp wrote:Doesn't that make it confusing?

Not at all, if that is what you _expect_ and desire.

karthikp wrote:Say I have a window on the first desktop on the left monitor and am looking at the third desktop of the right monitor.

When I move windows from the left to the right, I drag across the screen, not from a virt to virt. So, I would be, essentially, dragging from left side of virt 1, to the right side of virt 3, no problem. This is easily done already in kde, just by draggin the window from the pager, to another virt in the pager, so it _could_ work from screen to screen.

karthikp wrote:If I move the window from the left monitor to the right, it should move to the right half of the first desktop. However, I'm not looking at it right now, so basically, the window just disappears till I switch desktops on the right monitor.

I think I like the idea of keeping the left and right halves of the desktop together so the desktop changes on both monitors when I switch to a new desktop. And unless I'm wrong, this is the only possible way in kde. Your best option, as you mentioned, is to pin windows on the left monitor.

EDIT: I just realized that you could use activities and solve this partially. Instead of six virtual desktops, have six activities on the left and right. So, you're still on the same (and only) virtual desktop, but you've mapped the scroll to switch activities instead of desktops. This should let you switch activities independently on each monitor... I haven't tested this, though.

Hmm, okay, I may give that a try. Is this the correct forum to post such a request to the developers? That was the aim that I had. I'm not looking for this to be the _default_ behavior of KDE, but I would like the _OPTION_ of making it the default behavior.

Thanks for the info,
Andy

Feature requests can be made in the Brainstorm or at bugs.kde.org.