Multi-monitor support doesn't allow for overlapping displays

[Cay Horstmann]

Multi-monitor support with System->Preferences->Display does not allow a very useful setup, namely to have two monitors with different screen size and the same origin.

When you have a laptop and a larger monitor that is not a projector, this is what I generally want. It allows me to quickly detach the laptop and continue using it.

xorg can do it:

xrandr --output VGA --mode 1920x1200 --pos 0x0 --output LVDS --mode 1680x1050 --pos 0x0

When I do that in a command shell, the display application shows the overlapping screens. But as soon as I move one of them with the mouse, I lose: I can no longer position them over each other.

I realize this is a bug in a specific application, but it really is a "paper cut" because it bites people who are new to Ubuntu quickly.

[Vish (vish)]

Thank you for bringing this bug to our attention. Unfortunately a paper cut should be a small usability issue that affects many people and is quick and easy to fix. I'm afraid this bug can't be addressed as part of this project.

Thia does not affect the majority of the users, Hence not a papercut.
A paper cut is a minor usability annoyance that an average user would encounter on his/her first day of using a new installation of Ubuntu 9.10.

For further info about papercuts criteria , pls read > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut

Don't worry though, This bug has been marked as "invalid" ONLY in the papercuts project.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

It's a weird config, what's the point of having 2 screens if they display the same thing? That said it seems to work in Oneiric, could you check there?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I assume the point is that they want to have mirroring but still run each display at their native resolution.

The clipping on the smaller monitor would likely be quite confusing, although perhaps if panning is utilized the setup would be usable.

In any case, I think the use case for this configuration would need to be made more convincingly before adding it to the GUI config tool. We wouldn't want to clutter up the dialog with stuff that few people need and risk adding complexity and confusion.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

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