Re: [RP] some bugs, suggestions and kudos

[Joshua Neuheisel]

Hello all,

>From: "John Meacham" <address@hidden>
>Subject: [RP] some bugs, suggestions and kudos
>

> exec exec's programs on the wrong screen. (this is new in
> 1.2.0-beta4, it wasn't in 1.1.1). a sort of work around is to do a
> :setenv DISPLAY :0.1 before running apps, but this is sort of hacky and
> not very convienient.
> ...
> ability to 'exec' programs on arbitrary screens. this could be used in
> your .ratpoisonrc to call xsetroot on each screen. or sometimes you
> might want a keybinding which ran something on a particular monitor.

Whenever I need to run the gimp, I switch to the twm window manager
and run ratpoison in an Xnest window, usually with 2 screens.  In this
setup,
it often becomes necessary to exec xterms and other applications to specific
screens.  I find that the following are useful:
1. Start an xterm with the command "exec DISPLAY=:0.1 xterm".  Now the
DISPLAY environment variable is set correctly in that xterm.  If I need to
start another application in that screen, I can just start it from that
xterm and
all will be well.
2. The same trick applies directly to the exec of another program: e.g.,
"exec DISPLAY=:0.1 xmms".
Both are based on the fact that (at least for either bash or ash running as
sh) any
name=value pair before the command name sets the variable 'name' to the
value
'value' in the environment of the command.  I.e., "fly=away env|grep fly"
will
output "fly=away".

With that said, it would still be nice to have the exec command set the
DISPLAY
environment variable to the current screen by default.

>
> XINERAMA support. this is an alternate method of doing multiple screens,
> just read the XINERAMA structure and set up permament frames on each
> monitor then act normally. (except you would be unable to kill the
> frames and 'only' etc... would resize the app on the current monitor
> only). not sure whether this is better than multiple screens. with
> multiple screens you get OpenGL and Xvideo and multiple visuals, with
> Xinerama you get the ability to move apps between screeens.
>

Just my 2 cents, but I'd rather keep the multiple screens.  It works better
with
my Xnest setup mentioned above.  XINERAMA support could be a compile-time
choice, however; I have co-workers who would rather quit than give up their
single
desktop split across two monitors setup [ running gnome :-( ].  To each his
or her own...

Joshua