CrunchBang Linux

tiger

New Member

Registered: 2013-03-09

Posts: 3

Fake dual monitors on my wide screen

Hi all,

I have a 27" wide screen but I find myself not taking advantage of it. For 90% time I spend with the screen I deal with text (programming & emails). It is tempting to split the display into two "virtual" monitors such that I can maximize two windows on each half of the screen.

The only potential solution I found is fakexinerama which does not work for Crunchbang. I guess Openbox in Crunchbang does not use xinerama at all.

I would appreciate any suggestions -- virtual dual monitors or other methods, that can help me better use my wide screen. Thank you so much!

Phillip Bromley

Member

Registered: 2011-03-16

Posts: 38

Re: Fake dual monitors on my wide screen

What about a tiling window manager, like Awesome or Ratpoison? Then you could easily tile two (or more) windows on the screen, far more efficiently than you could with two "virtual" monitors. I use Awesome personally, and I think it would work great on a large display. However, I believe Openbox has some limited tiling support as well, you might want to look into that before you resort to something more complicated.

nore

>2^9

From: Lakeland

Registered: 2009-11-28

Posts: 618

Re: Fake dual monitors on my wide screen

Manual tiling is easy in Openbox. I usually have two windows side by side on a widescreen, bound to Super+left/right arrow keys. On big screens (over 19") I also have 2Rx3C-setting bound to super+number keys. Here's my rc.xml, if you want to examine it. Look down below line 282.

edit: example

Last edited by nore (2013-03-09 08:59:38)

nore

>2^9

From: Lakeland

Registered: 2009-11-28

Posts: 618

Re: Fake dual monitors on my wide screen

Brontosaurusrex's signature reminded that there is also a howto-thread:
Index » Tips, Tricks & Scripts » openbox manual tiling

tiger

New Member

Registered: 2013-03-09

Posts: 3

Re: Fake dual monitors on my wide screen

Thanks pals for the great tips!

What about a tiling window manager, like Awesome or Ratpoison?

Well, I'd prefer an Openbox based solution. But I do agree now the idea of tiling is much more efficient than virtual monitors

Manual tiling is easy in Openbox.

Thank you nore, you solved my problem! I copied 270 lines from your rc.xml into mine which worked like a charm ( well, more than a charm for the 2Rx3C setting ).

nore

>2^9

From: Lakeland

Registered: 2009-11-28

Posts: 618

Re: Fake dual monitors on my wide screen

I'm glad you liked it. Now you can make any setup you need and bind them to any keys you like. Defining widths and heights in percents instead of pixels makes it easy to copy the bindings to another setup or rearranging your panels. You might also want to define default settings for specific applications:
http://openbox.org/wiki/Help:Applications

Let us also see your setup in screenshot thread.

TonyHe

New Member

Registered: 2013-03-21

Posts: 1

Re: Fake dual monitors on my wide screen

Thanks for sharing your configure, helps a lot!

Brontosaurusrex's signature reminded that there is also a howto-thread:
Index » Tips, Tricks & Scripts » openbox manual tiling