So, does anyone else on the list use xinerama (either with blackbox or not) and/or have any suggestions for behavior that would be nice to tune in blackbox when using it? Some possiblities:
I'm not currently having my second monitor connected, and thus isn't having Xinerama enabled, but for quite a long period of time I ran Blackbox on top of my Xinerama-enabled X. It was quite the frustration not having Blackbox be very (as I see it) Xinerama aware, so I did make a serious effort at implementing some "sane" Xinerma behaviour. I kind of gave it up though when I realised it might go straight in the dumpster when 0.70 is eventually coming out (with so much rewritten) plus the fact that I couldn't seem to make it a very clean patch.
* Window placement: this is the biggie for me. I use mostly xterms plus the odd mozilla, emacs, evolution, xmms window, etc., so have bbkeys set up to launch my favs from key combos. Often I'll drop xterms across the top of a workspace like that, then run something else to fill the space below. When running xinerama the new app plops into the next head over, because there's still space at the top of my 3200x1200 desktop area. I can think of several possible strategies that seem better to me... - always place windows in whatever region of the desktop the monitor with the pointer in it covers. (This is what I like, and the attached patch implements it, with some bugs still. Downside is the potential non-intuitiveness. Upside is that windows are associated with your current "attention area," and it makes it easy to turn off one monitor to save power/reduce heat some of the time.) - first try the region of desktop the the monitor with the pointer covers, if there's not enough room, try the other monitors, if they don't have enough room either, then use the monitor with the pointer after all. (I can see the argument for this: more intuitive for first time user perhaps, and makes it easier to tile your workspace appropriately.)
If I understand you right I also tried to implement the first behvaiour. It was the one that immediately made most sense and, I guess, seemed easiest to implement.
I'm not so sure the second behaviour is more intuitive either. You tend to look in the area of the mouse pointer, and I think it could be confusing having windows appear on the other monitor. When I was using Blackbox (in its unhacked form) with Xinerma I tended to get a bit of that behaviour - I used a keyboard shortcut to open a term, and it opened on the monitor where I wasn't looking because the other one was full. I at least found that slightly confusing and annoying.
* Expanding windows to full screen. Seems like it should be to full current monitor size. Arguments against?
Definitly in favour.
* Centered dialog windows. For instance, the mozilla download dialog pops up in the middle of the display. I don't know if this is being done because mozilla asks blackbox how to put it in the middle, or because mozilla does it's own magic, but the result is popping up spanning monitors. Any ideas?
My implementation was pretty much based around the idea that window placing function in Blackbox only got to know about the area of one monitor at the time. Then I added offsets to the coordinates the function worked out, depending on what monitor was concerned.
* Edge resistence for pointer between monitors. Personlly I don't much care about this one. Any strong feelings?
None would be fine with me.
I can't try out your patch right now, but how did you do with the toolbar? I felt it would be kept within one of the monitors.
Thanks all for blackbox; it's my favorite window manager by far. -emile
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who would like to see some kind of Xinerma awareness in Blackbox. I'd be glad to hear of your progress.
Mattias
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