Allow displaying different virtual desktops on different devices

[jerzyo]

Binary package hint: gnome

When I plug in a monitor to my notebook (ubuntu 9.04) I can mirror my image or enlarge my desktop to display something on the second device with gnome-display-properties.

I think that it should be possible to display different virtual desktops on different devices. If I have 4 virtual desktops, I should be able to display first desktop on one device, second desktop on another one etc. I should also be able to change displays on different devices separately.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. The issue is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug the to the people writting the software (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME)

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Theoretically this ought to be doable but it sounds like something that could break a lot of code assumptions and might be a heck of a lot of work to fully implement and make reliable. I think a more detailed justification for this is needed.

jerzyo, if you're still around could you please explain in more detail why people would want this and how they'd make use of it?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Closing as wontfix since we don't have a clear enough understanding of the problem this change would solve.

[frizzle21 (frederik-nnaji)]

the problem this would help solve would be for example to easily assign a full screen application, be it a webapp in a browser or a presentation, to a seperate display output channel, all this being done by an ordinary user with no expert knowledge on a desktop window management level.
thank you.
problem solved.

the alterternative would be to write xorg.conf from scratch, and that means the user has to work with the command line to assign a specific picture to a specific output and the user must learn the extremely poorly documented configuration language of xorg.conf

[jpileborg (arrow-pileborg)]

Commenting on Bryce's request for a use case for this.

One use case would be how I use the Awesome window manager at work: I have two physical screens, on one I can have my text editor doing whatever programming is needed, on the other I switch between a workspace (called "tag" in awesome) containing terminal windows, a workspace containing documentation and a workspace with the webpage/application I'm working on.

I would use Awesome at home as well, if it wasn't for that it's not very user-friendly, and it will be a problem when my wife wants to use the computer.