Hotplug: Turning off DisplayPort monitor also tears down its associated desktop.

[Olivier Fourdan]

If Xorg is able to detect that the monitor got turned off, chances are
that it will notify the running apps via xrandr and the desktop
environment will adjust things accordingly, this is all perfectly
normal and expected.

For example, if windows are left on an output which is gone, it means
they won't be accessible to the user which is a problem, so xfwm4 will
move them so at least a small portion of the window remains visible on
whatever monitor is still present.

Again, this is the desired behaviour and not something that was
changed in xfce-4.12 (previous versions did exactly the same)

So, to me, what you describe looks like a well written desktop :)

Cheers,
Olivier

On 14 March 2015 at 23:58, Michal Varga <spash at otana.link> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> since the recent import of XFCE 4.12 into my Linux distribution, I'm
> running into an issue that kind of really breaks my traditional work
> flow and I would like to find a solution for it, if someone could
> explain to me what suddenly changed...
>
> When I physically turn off any monitor connected via DisplayPort, its
> entire desktop configuration is automatically removed from the running X
> server, thus reshuffling the entire desktop layout (and in the process
> hilariously breaking i.e. proportions of widgets depending on that
> particular layout - xfce panel workspace switcher suddenly pushing
> everything else out of your deskbar panel being a nice example of it).
>
> I've been trying to find the particular component responsible for this,
> or finding a configuration option to bring it back to the normal (read:
> pre-XFCE 4.12 normal) behavior, but so far I had no luck, seeing nor
> xfce-power-manager, nor xfwm4 alone cause this and I can't exactly
> figure out what else can be listening on RandR and be responsible. My
> suspicion lies somewhere in xfsettingsd, but obviously, one can't
> effectively tear that one out of a working XFCE setup, so that's a
> no-go.
>
> So my question is: How can I make XFCE 4.12 stop playing "smart" with my
> monitor configuration and *not* automatically remove a display that has
> been powered off? I realize this may be possibly a handy feature for
> laptops, which is probably why it has been introduced in the first
> place, but it makes absolutely no sense on desktops (at least without
> being able to turn the behavior off, which as I say I can't seem to
> figure out how - unless I totally missed something obvious). There are
> perfectly valid reasons for turning off some of my monitors without also
> wanting their whole desktops getting torn down with it, so I'd really
> like to have the former behavior back.
>
> m.
>
> --
> Michal Varga,
> Stonehenge
>
> Web site: http://varga.stonehenge.sk
> Crypto ID: https://keybase.io/spash
>
>
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