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I would like to see that the virtual-desktop would change only for the monitor your mouse pointer is on. This would leave the user free to have a different desktop on each monitor. If more then one monitor was set to the same desktop the second monitor would show a clone of the 1st monitors desktop.

BTW I blogged a more detailed explanation http://rmsmit.blogspot.com/2010/03/virt ... nitor.html

This would have several advantages:-

1) A user would be able to easily change between cloned and non-cloned view of each monitor. If they had more then 2 monitors s/he would be free to move virtual-desktops about as s/he pleased.

2) Any window could be independently set to be displayed on any monitor just by setting which Desktop it is to be displayed in (or to be displayed in all desktops).
A presenter could have all windows displayed on his or her laptop monitor but only the window he wants to show to the group display on both laptop and external projector.

3) since the desktop cube windows can be stretched across desktops as we would still be able to stretch a window across monitors showing different desktops.

4) There would be clearer definition of what a maximized window is then there is currently with Extended-Dektops.

5) with some extended desktop arrangements there can be a an area that is part of the desktop but outside the monitors display area if extending across monitors of different resolutions. This would be less of an issue with each monitor displaying a different desktop.

I'm not really sure if KDE can do anything about it.

Primoz wrote:I'm not really sure if KDE can do anything about it.

Yea I'm not really sure where the line is drawen between the desktop and X-windows. but I thought extending windows between virtual-desktops would have been out of the realm of the windows manager but it was still done in compris and in kwin so I thought I'd give it a go.

The other complication is when 2 monitors are showing the same Virtual-Desktop the mouse pointer would have to be different on the "active" so the user can see which desktop his or her mouse pointer is actually on so he can know which monitor he will be changeing the desktop on when he switches desktops again.

Also when 1 monitor is showing a "cloned" virtual-desktop of another montitor the resolution & DPI should be that of the monitor that was set to that desktop 1st, scalling or panning the desktop view of the 1st monitor.

I realise this is no easy idea to implement and may involve changes to X-windows but KDE is already puching changes to Xorg and it may already be possible with all the changes and updates already going into X-windows and Kwin.

I think it would reduce the complexity to the user. Users already have to deal with multi-monitor, multiple-desktops and in the future mulitple activities, this would effectivly mearge multi-monitor and multi-desktops into one entity with more flexability.

Thanks for listening I hope someone out there knows how to do this and thinks it's as good an idea as I do

Well it is an interesting idea, I'll give you that. But the problem is that there are just so many points in this idea that are just out of KDEs control.
First you have X.org then you have drivers for it that provide different options, then you have a windows manager (Kwin) and then there's desktop environment.
I'm not a developer so I really can't say how much of it could be implemented by KDE.
But I think that not much.

I realise this may not be posible but if enough people vote for it then someone with the right knowledge should look into it.

If it needs Xorg changes and it has support of the KDE comunity then someone with some influence with Xorg people should make the proposal to them. There have already been a number of updates to Xorg to accomodate KDE4 use cases.

Let us just take this one step at a time. If it gets the votes and it's a valid suggestion then worry about how to do it

Voted up ... Although I don't use 2 monitors, but if I had then this is exactly the way I would like tu use them.

Rms-Mit wrote:I would like to see that the virtual-desktop would change only for the monitor your mouse pointer is on. This would leave the user free to have a different desktop on each monitor. If more then one monitor was set to the same desktop the second monitor would show a clone of the 1st monitors desktop.

Is this the same as described in this feature request?

A similar feature is in xmonad (except for the cloning bit; as others have pointed out, this would lead to problems when using different resolutions among the monitors). From the xmonad tour:

xmonad has by default 9 virtual workspaces. Each physical screen is a portal onto one of these workspaces. The relationship between physical screens and virtual workspaces is described by the following image, which shows a conceptual model of xmonad, with 2 physical screens acting as portals onto 5 virtual workspaces.

Needless to say that this feature would be immensely useful, so you got my vote. :-P

This xmonad seams to be going in the oposite direction to what I was try to get to with this idea.

I was trying to reduce the complexity to the user by merging virtual-desktops and multi-monitor. This would simplifing things by reduceing the number of consepts the user has to think about when dealing with the desktop GUI experience.

xmonad seams to be adding complexity by adding the additional concept of Virtual-screens which would mean that users would have to understand and deal with Activities, Virtual-Desktops, multi-monitors AND Virtual-Screens.
:-S

Further ideas on how I would see this working:-

1) Moving the mouse off the side of one monitor would still have the mouse pointer move to the next monitor. Draging windows between monitors would be the same as draggin windows between desktops on "THE CUBE".

2) When changeing desktops would only change on the desktop of the monitor your mouse pointer is on.

3) If the you change the desktop of monitor 2 so as it is the same desktop as monitor 1 then monitor 2 would see a scaled up view of mon1 if mon1 is lower resolution.
If Mon1 is higher resolution then monitor 2 would see a panned view of the desktop on monitor 1.
Useing this with the new desktop zoom function offered in KDE4 would allow you to change this however you like.

4) If mon2 is a clone of mon1 then the mouse pointer will be 'ON' one monitor and a mouse pointer shadow will be seen on the other. This will allow you to see the mouse (or point to things with it in a presentation) on both monitors while still having the mouse pointer on a particular monitor (for when you want to change desktops on that monitor).

5) If mon2 is a scalled view of the desktop on mon1 and mon1 moved to a different desktop then mon2 will become the main monitor for that desktop and adjust that desktop to match it's resolution and Dots per inch(DPI).

Note:- some programs use DPI to show "Actual size" of something, eg print preview etc. . . so DPI is also an important consideration.

There is already a feature request for virtual desktops per screen: Associate any virtual desktop with any xinerama screen

Idea marked as submitted.

Another brainstorm Idea that could be incorporated here

brainstorm.php?mode=idea&i=84916

BTW I blogged a more detailed explanation http://rmsmit.blogspot.com/2010/03/virt ... nitor.html