Expo: Workspaces cross monitor edges, implement a "One big smart wall" output option, that ensures workspaces are not cut between displays

[David Hugh-Jones]

If you have multiple monitors and hit the expo key, the exposed workspaces will be shown over your multiple monitors. This may split your workspaces in an unattractive way, as the screenshot shows. Suggested solution: make sure each workspace is shown on a single monitor.

Task:
Implement a third output mode option named "One big smart wall" in Expo, which will make
sure the workspaces are not cut between displays.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Could you please add your ~/.xsession-errors, /var/log/Xorg.0.log and the output of lspci -vvnn to your bug report as separate attachments? Thanks in advance.

[David Hugh-Jones (davidhughjones)]

Attached.

[Michael Rooney (mrooney)]

David, this should be configurable by changing the multioutput_mode. If you don't have compizconfig-settings-manager installed, install it and then run it from from System -> Preferences -> CompizConfig..., then click Expo, then Appearance tab, and change "Multi Output Mode" to "One wall per output". Does that address your issue?

[David Hugh-Jones (davidhughjones)]

It does what it says, but it's still suboptimal. The choice is between
having one wall per monitor, which looks strange, and having a single
big wall with the monitors cutting the workspaces. It would be ideal
to have just one wall, but not to split workspaces over screens. But I
appreciate this is beginning to sound like a RFE, not a bug.

[Michael Rooney (mrooney)]

Thanks David. I will mark this as a feature request and see about an upstream task.

[Michael Rooney (mrooney)]

I can't find an upstream task for it (http://bugs.opencompositing.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=expo) so I would recommend signing up for an account there (I just did it, it took 60 seconds) and filing a new bug, and linking to it here for tracking purposes. As feature requests will almost certainly only be implemented upstream, this will help your cause greatly!

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

did somebody sent this upstream? may you tell us the bug number there or shall we go ahead and close this report? thanks.

[Michael Rooney (mrooney)]

I don't believe anyone filed it upstream, but why would you close it?

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

if no one is interested on filed it upstream it means no one is going to implement the feature, there's no sense to keep bugs opens just because, will leave it open waiting for the submission there.

[jhfhlkjlj (fdsuufijjejejejej-deactivatedaccount)]

This will be fixed in upcoming iterations of compiz. See section 2.9 of https://docs.google.com/a/canonical.com/document/d/1aHvJ-iIw-59bXTYBmIhQqEx0za2h9jpFE_RhZ2VOvJc/edit?authkey=CJO5wPkH&hl=en_GB

[jhfhlkjlj (fdsuufijjejejejej-deactivatedaccount)]

Indeed, as this is planning on being implemenented in a much more attractive fashion and there are other trackers for the issue, I'm going to just close this report to try and reduce the noise in the bug tracker.

Thanks for the bug, and sorry it's taken this long to get it fixed.

[Eleni Maria Stea (hikiko)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug. The compiz program that we currently use in Ubuntu is a C++ re-write of the original compiz and was announced the 4th July 2010. Therefore, the bugs that were reported before that date, will be marked as "Won't Fix" as they probably exist in the original program which is not stored in launchpad. (The last LTS that used the old compiz is the 10.04 which is not supported anymore).