Dual-screen issues (from Nov 20, 2004)

[Delbert Franz]

Synopsis of problem:  
1. Panel in the second head does not retain changes to its 
contents or its location.

2. gkrellm set to return to screen 1 always shows up on 
screen 0 on a reboot.  

I have a work around for the first problem, a way to have 
the panel in the second head retain its contents and its 
locations.  I found this after much searching and trial
and error:)  

First, xfce 4.2 appears to restart the second head from 
a standard location that differs from the location used to 
retain the values for the panel in the first head(screen 0).
On my system, Debian Sarge with the os-works xfce4 package
installed,  this location is:

/etc/xdg/xfce4/panel/contents.xml

That is, at every start or restart of the panel in the second
head it will copy contents.xml from this location and 
write it to ~/.config/xfce4/panel/contents.xml.active.1,
where ~ as usual is your home directory path.  Thus 
I created a script file, savepanel, that I put in 
/usr/local/bin.  its contents are:


#Save the panel in the right-hand window.  xfce4 does not seem to do it yet!
cp /home/ddf/.config/xfce4/panel/contents.xml.active.1 /etc/xdg/xfce4/panel/contents.xml

#Save the panel in the left-hand window for good measure!  
cp /home/ddf/.config/xfce4/panel/contents.xml.active /home/ddf/.config/xfce4/panel/contents.xml

Then you have to remember to run savepanel as root or using sudo.
On your next restart or reboot, the panel in the second head should 
then retain its values.  

You may have to search a bit on your system.  I do not know were
Suse puts these files.  Do a locate for "contents.xml" and you should 
find at least one copy somewhere other than your home directory. 
Then compare its size to the file: contents.xml.active.1, in your home 
directory.  If they are the same size, it is likely the one that
is being used to initialize your home directory. 

On the second problem, my work-around was to create a launcher in the 
panel in the second head to start gkrellm.  I could find no other way 
to get gkrellm to start in the second head.  Of course the solution to 
the first problem makes this possible:)

Hope this helps. The reason this is so late is that I just joined the list and
I was searching for another problem when I found yours. 

                                     Delbert