On X11, a user can set a primary display, arrange panels and widgets on that display in any way they like and can then move this arrangement to another screen by switching primary display. It seems a shame for this not to be possible on Wayland but apparently users were confused by the idea of Primary Display vs Active Display (to do with windows placement) which pushed Plasma devs to remove the concept of Primary Display on Wayland. If Plasma Devs want to remove the concept of primary display in Wayland, maybe it could be replaced by a more generalised version of the idea of "per screen widgets and panel settings" currently provided by the concept of primary display on X11. By more generalised I mean: - The user set panels and widgets on any screen and save that config. For e.g. KCM has a new config sub-section under Display called "Panels and Widgets Layout", where people can save the widget config by selecting "save widget config present on Screen X" (where Screen X is a drop down) and give it a name (e.g. Primary). From that point on Plasma save any changes happening to the widget config on that screen and record the state of the config when a screen is unplugged or that particular config is not assigned to any screen. When no config is assigned, then we get the usual empty wallpaper. - The user can then apply a saved widget config on an screen by selecting..."apply widget config NameX on screen X" People could then save widget config on different screen, switch config between screens or assign any of them to any new screen. This would be a more involved widget management function and no idea how complicated it would be to implement something like this but here is an idea if useful anyway :)
One correction: Plasma devs didn't remove the concept, but rather it's not implemented at all on Wayland. It sounds like you are basically looking for a way to clone one screen's layout onto another one or exchange the two, and have previously been using the X11 primary display feature to approximate the feature. Would that be accurate?
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1) > One correction: Plasma devs didn't remove the concept, but rather it's not > implemented at all on Wayland. Yes you're right. Also I didn't mean any value judgement on this. I love plasma devs :). I suppose what I meant was that from what I read elsewhere, it was a decision not to implement it because it was "confusing" and "only dealt with panel placement". See first comment on this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/ae8czw/plasma_wayland_works_great_but_how_do_i_set_a/ > It sounds like you are basically looking for a way to clone one screen's > layout onto another one or exchange the two, and have previously been using > the X11 primary display feature to approximate the feature. Would that be > accurate? I suppose what I meant here is that what the Primary Display feature actually does is cloning (actually switching) one screen widget (including panels) layout into another screen, but "only" does it for one screen layout. So the proposal is, if the feature is to come back, maybe a cool thing would be to be able to do it for multiple widget layouts (if say a user has/wants different widgets on different screens), which would make switching between different screen arrangements very versatile and convenient. And then create a separate section / title in KCM to manage this which describes what the feature is actually about (panel and widget layout) so it stops being confused with the Active Screen thingy. But if this is too complicated, just bringing back Primary Screen would be fine for many use cases. Maybe just with renaming the Primary Screen tick box in Kscreen settings as something like "Primary widget layout" (I'm not great for finding sexy feature title, am I).
*** Bug 436733 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
We now have a primary display starting with 5.25.
Sorry, 5.24.