Dual head, independently choose from same desktops?

[Ben Tilly]

On 1/12/06, Jonathan Gardner <bohemian72 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 1/12/06, Ben Tilly <btilly at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > PS Why would I want such a bizarre thing?  Because I put different
> > projects on different virtual desktops.  But often while working on
> > one project I'll need to refer to stuff from another, and I can't
> > predict what combination of things I'll want to look at.  Right now I
> > handle this by switching desktops back and forth, but it would be much
> > nicer to just have an arbitrary combination of them up to look at.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Xfce mailing list
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> > http://www.xfce.org
> >
>
>
> At work, where I do have two monitors but with Windows, I do something
> similar even though the two monitors are functioning as one really wide
> monitor. I simply have one application or project up on the left and a
> different one up on the right. Actually, it's not exactly like having one
> wide monitor because if I maximize it will maximize to the monitor (however,
> I can drag or stretch a window across both screens). I can minimize apps and
> when I restore them they pop up in their respective monitors. Sounds a lot
> like what you want and with the extra real estate, maybe you can do what you
> want without worrying about having more than one virtual desktop up at a
> time.
> Of course, maybe what you want is entirely possible in which case go with
> that.

What you're suggesting is that having 2 monitors might give me enough
real estate that I don't need virtual desktops.  Unfortunately given
that I currently am actively using and switching between 6 virtual
desktops, being able to display 2 at once is not sufficient.  And the
pairs that I switch between are not in any simple relationship.

For instance 4 of my desktops right now are my email, my browser,
stuff related to a long-running batch job, and stuff I'm temporarily
looking at (small bug fixes and the like).  While doing bug fixing I
might want to be looking at an emailed problem description, a trouble
ticket in my browser, or be monitoring the batch job.  Conversely
while tinkering with the batch job I might want to be looking at the
request ticket or emails related to that batch job, or I simply might
want the temporary tinkering area open to more files than I can
comfortably put on one screen.  And while reading email I might want
to refer back and forth to stuff on my browser.

So I really do wind up with periods where I'm rapidly switching
between every possible combination of those 4 desktops.  (And
therefore where it would be nice to have that combination visible.)

Now I know that what I want is _theoretically_ possible.  However
doing it would require an awful lot of cooperation from the window
manager.  It sounds like xfce doesn't implement that, and it well may
be that nobody does.

Thanks for verifying that,
Ben