Bug 167558 - unable to stretch wallpaper over two screens in pseudo-xinerama setup (fglrx bigdesktop)
Summary: unable to stretch wallpaper over two screens in pseudo-xinerama setup (fglrx ...
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Alias: None
Product: plasma4
Classification: Plasma
Component: multiscreen (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Ubuntu Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords:
: 165898 168885 184882 187258 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2008-07-28 01:42 UTC by nat.tellin
Modified: 2018-06-08 20:19 UTC (History)
14 users (show)

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Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:


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Description nat.tellin 2008-07-28 01:42:33 UTC
Version:            (using KDE 4.0.98)
Installed from:    Ubuntu Packages

I'm using the proprietary ATI drivers and two monitors. The driver offers an option called BigDesktop. This uses a single framebuffer for two monitors, and provides an internal Xinerama extension.

-Single screen as seen and reported by X, 2560x1024 in my case (two 1280x1024 monitors)
-Windows snap to screen edges and maximize within a single monitor as expected and desired - this behavior is due to the pseudo-Xinerama info provided by the driver
-The kicker properly respects the two screens as well

What does NOT work as expected is that I get *two* desktop plasmoid things as can be seen from a handle in the top right of each screen when unlocked. I have a 2560x1024 wallpaper that typically spans both monitors. However, because I have two 'desktops' I have two 'backgrounds'. If I set the right monitor to the wide wallpaper for example, it is scaled to fit the 1280x1024 dimensions of the right screen. Left screen has a totally independent wallpaper.

I *could* chop the texture in half in the GIMP and set the backgrounds separately, but that would be a pain.

Proper behavior is seen in both the current Gnome and KDE 3.5
The screen resolution as seen by X clients is 2560x1024, the same as the wallpaper. The only issue here is that Xinerama for some reason triggers two desktop widgets instead of one sized to the full resolution.
Comment 1 Maximilian Güntner 2008-10-04 01:19:41 UTC
Still the same in KDE 4.1.1 most likely in 4.1.2 too.

Comment 2 Maximilian Güntner 2008-11-02 16:12:14 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Still the same in KDE 4.1.1 most likely in 4.1.2 too.
> 

I wrote a tiny bash script which crops all images in one folder and stores it in another one.So you'll get two 1280x1024 images out of one big 2560x1024 image.
Here's the link : http://beomuex.org/download/batchcrop.sh
Comment 3 Pino Toscano 2008-11-02 16:21:38 UTC
*** Bug 168885 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 4 Gael Beaudoin 2008-11-18 21:18:05 UTC
*** Bug 165898 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 Gael Beaudoin 2008-11-18 21:20:49 UTC
<aseigo> the solution is to make the Wallpaper plugins sharable across containments so they can paint some on one containment and something else on another

For the record, so as I don't ask again ;)
Comment 6 smilreg 2009-02-19 17:17:41 UTC
I'd also like to be able to 
* have wallpaper across two monitors (not two half images!)
* Have only one plasma desktop shortcut 'cashew', instead of one per monitor
* have slide show images in the screen saver across two monitors 

As described above by others, currently (in KDE 4.2.00) each monitor gets their own wallpaper, cashew and screen saver slide show. 

KDE 4.2 is very nice, I love it. Can't get me to buy a Mac, this is much better!
Comment 7 Aaron J. Seigo 2009-02-24 10:32:30 UTC
*** Bug 184882 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 8 FiNeX 2009-08-04 00:20:24 UTC
*** Bug 187258 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Neil Skrypuch 2009-08-12 02:34:55 UTC
Still an issue in KDE 4.3 (with NVidia TwinView too, not that I'd expect it to make a difference vs ATI Bigdesktop). One cashew on each screen and separate wallpapers for each screen
Comment 10 Neil Skrypuch 2009-08-12 02:35:38 UTC
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
Comment 11 Philipp 2010-01-25 15:25:11 UTC
As I tried to explain on
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-6147066.html#6147066
already, it is ridiculous keeping to mention that one could always split images with this editor or that script.

KDE has the feature of using collections of wallpapers which are swapped automatically after a given interval. Many people have collections of multiple screen images. These two mutually exclude each other in terms of pure sense.

PLEASE fix that. There are more than a few people to whom this is greatly annoying. Thank you.
Comment 12 Philipp 2010-01-25 15:26:00 UTC
As I tried to explain on
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-6147066.html#6147066
already, it is ridiculous keeping to mention that one could always split images with this editor or that script.

KDE has the feature of using collections of wallpapers which are swapped automatically after a given interval. Many people have collections of multiple screen images. These two mutually exclude each other in terms of pure sense.

PLEASE fix that. There are more than a few people to whom this is greatly annoying. Thank you.
Comment 13 Philipp 2010-01-25 15:29:05 UTC
Aaargh, bugzilla database jam ;-) Please ignore the double post.
Comment 14 smilreg 2010-02-24 01:13:47 UTC
We've arrived at KDE 4.4 now, with still no ability to strech an image across two monitors. Forgive me if I'm wrong.
At the very least, if the plasma design/architecture does not allows for such a thing natively, then let the poor user pick an image, and in the background, cut it into two, and assign each image to the left and right monitor/plasma instance.  It's ugly, but maybe it'll hold us over until KDE 5 or whenever multiple monitors will be fully supported in KDE.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm a loyal KDE user, upgrading with every release, etc. But I have those nice images I'd really like to stretch across two screens.
Comment 15 Ken Zalewski 2010-03-03 15:30:31 UTC
As far as I'm concerned, this is a major regression from KDE3.  I use NVidia Twinview, and used to be able to set a wallpaper across two monitors.  As of KDE4.4, this is still not possible.
Comment 16 Gael Beaudoin 2010-03-03 15:41:21 UTC
This may be a regression, but AFAIK, due to how screens are handled separately ( with each one its containment and settings), this won't be done. I'm not saying this is technically impossible, but I don't think it will be done. I'm not an official voice though.
Comment 17 Philipp 2010-03-10 19:06:29 UTC
Maybe screens are handled separately, which as a matter of principle is not a bad idea. But as much as they are independent, they obviously share some intelligence or better said, some temporal settings. If I click on the left desktop and chose to 'open' a new wallpaper from some folder, hit 'OK' and then click on the right desktop and chose to 'open' a new wallpaper from some folder, my folder of choice from the *left* desktop is remembered.

What I am trying to say is that it couldn't be such a hard task to write one or two dozen lines of code which interconnect the separate desktops, control their wallpaper settings and transparently split a multimonitor wallpaper appropriately so that it gets displayed correctly.

For my sake, put it into some external dialog if it doesn't fit into the "Desktop Activity Settings" dialog.

In 4.4.1 we now got remote controls for widgets over network. I wonder what they are for or if anyone uses that for more than a plaything. But it could be a hook for our actual problem here.

Make desktops remote controllable. Limit the control to localhost or whatever. Create some dialog which manages multiple monitor wallpapers and then goes to the desktops, telling them "Oh for gods sake! Your tatoo says 'Dude'! And yours says 'Sweet'! Now get out!"

Maybe you get the idea ;-)

If I had a decent enough knowledge of C++ and Qt and 18 months spare to work myself through the tech docs of KDE, I probably would hack something together by myself. But unfortunately I have to spend my time earning my rent and swaering about once unique to KDE features which have disappeared in v4.0 for practical reason.
Comment 18 Philipp 2010-03-10 19:17:53 UTC
Erm, sorry again. Obviously I mean for NO practical reason ;-)
Comment 19 Aaron J. Seigo 2010-03-10 22:59:06 UTC
"remote controls for widgets over network [...] it could be a hook for our actual problem here."

it is not related at all.

i'm also goin to say this, as i have on other bug reports that are similarly getting endless discussion with no practical benefit to the discussion:

the next contentless comment, such as "why isn't this done already?", made to this bug report will cause its closure as INVALID.

it will remain on our internal TODO lists, but it will no longer be tracked here. feel free to add yourself as a CC to this report or actually start working on a patch for it, but every comment left here ends up in my, and the other plasma developers', email. that doesn't get us to work on these items any faster, quite the opposite in fact.
Comment 20 FiNeX 2010-08-15 11:43:24 UTC
I prefer the current KDE 4 behaviour: in this way I can set two separate wallpapers on the two screens.

I don't like the idea to have only one file which cover both screens because I should open gimp and create big images each time I want to change the wallpaper.
Comment 21 chapinjeff 2010-08-15 16:31:23 UTC
Why not go *back* to the old way of doing things? Where do can select either 'span' or 'individual' and not have to use the gimp to manipulate the wallpaper files at all?
Comment 22 Philipp 2010-10-06 13:47:23 UTC
I recently switched over to XFCE because of KDE 4.5.1 being even more unstable on my workstation than 4.4.5 - whatever the reason, I don't care anymore.

Having said that, now on topic:
XFCE allows for external reloading of the desktop process. Using that fact, I wrote a little script, which automatically splits multiscreen images and reloads the desktop.

More details:
http://forum.xfce.org/index.php?topic=5494.0

Maybe someone is keen enough to adopt this to KDE, perhaps as an external tool. Though maybe we're lacking the remote reloading feature with Plasma (see the several requests for DBUS support), but I don't know that and haven't tried yet.

Yes, it is written in PHP/CLI and is of course a quick and dirty hack. But it "worksforme".
Comment 23 Nate Graham 2018-06-08 20:19:34 UTC
Hello!

This feature request was filed for KDE Plasma 4, which reached end-of-support status in August 2015. KDE Plasma 5's desktop shell has been almost completely rewritten for better performance and usability, so it is likely that this feature request is already implemented in Plasma 5, or is no longer applicable.

Accordingly, we hope you understand why we must close this feature request. If the requested feature is still desired but not implemented in KDE Plasma 5.12 or later, please feel free to open a new ticket in the "plasmashell" product after reading https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/Bug_Reporting

If you would like to get involved in KDE's bug triaging effort so that future mass bug closes like this are less likely, please read https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved#Bug_Triaging

Thanks for your understanding!

Nate Graham