There are several improvements to the specification (including more elegant discoverability of the Greeter login across displays, improved placement of windows upon removal of a display and a more feasible solution for providing missing resolutions in the Display Preferences panel).
The document has also been restructured in places, with new and extended sections, specifying in further detail how elements such as the Guest Session, Launcher, Spread and mouse cursor should work in a multi-monitor setup.
We have also created a prototype to explore how the Greeter works across multiple displays.
Multi-Monitor Greeter Prototype
You can check out the prototype by downloading it from here: http://ubuntuone.com/6MHk2xkW5L3Bl9pGsj10z4
Press Escape to exit the prototype.
Press Space to check out the prototype against a number of different desktop backgrounds (will cycle through the images in /usr/share/backgrounds)
Hold down Alt to show numbers on each display. Still holding down Alt, you can then tap a number to move the Greeter across to that numbered display, allowing you to change the display you log in with, without using the mouse. In the final implementation, the Super key will be used rather than the Alt key, but I can’t bind to that keyboard shortcut in my prototype.
Please let us know your thoughts on the updated specification and the new Greeter prototype.
The usernames can be really hard to read on the snow wallpaper. impossible actualy.
Glad to see the “Developer Dots” removed from the background though.
The one multi-monitor thing I would like is when not showing top bar on second screen when VLC full screen on second screen.
e.g.
* Screen one on left has launcher some apps open
* Screen two on right no launcher VLC full screen
* When open full screen on VLC on second monitor no top bar.
* When do something on screen one e.g click mouse on something. VLC on screen two stays full screen but the top bar is now painted on top of the video I am watching :(
It would be very nice if you could set the top bar not to paint over full screen videos
It’s brilliant, sexy, and oh-so-functional!
For anyone trouble running it, you need to install ia32-libs if you’re on 64 bit. Really nice prototype though.
Love it, pretty much perfect as is!
Looks great nice work.
Looks great! Looking forward to using it in precise.
Thanks! This looks great. Looking forward to Ubuntu 12.04.
nice, still some concerns
– on light wallpapers, text is not visible, you can solve this by adding shadow, engraved text effects, bg with horizontal gradient
– I guess you can remove top panel (visually), like in ubuntuTV, icons will look sexier
– maybe – remove useless panels, backgrounds, like bg for number of the screen, bg for selected user to login
Finally! That is something I want definitively see in 12.04!
Can you make the keyboard shortcut configurable (even if only via GConf) in the final version – my preferred keyboard is a 1984 vintage buckling spring device, but it pre-dates the invention of the Windows (Super) key.
Having now read the spec, it generally sounds great, but there are two items that concern me:
2.10. Workspace Switcher – “If a new workspace is chosen, it is changed across all displays.”
I’d like to be able to hold a modifier to limit the change to the display with focus (and ideally a pref to set that as the default, with the modifier being used to change all displays instead).
E.g. When doing web development work I might have my browser on one display to preview the results, and a second display for editing – one workspace with a text editor, another with an image editor. I wouldn’t want my browser to disappear when I switch between editors (i.e. between workspaces).
2.13. Notify OSD – “Notifications appear on the display which currently has focus.”
I’d prefer notifications across all screens. Just because the mouse/keyboard focus is one one screen, it doesn’t always follow that my eyes are looking at that one (I could be watching a video on another screen). And if the notification appears as I’m moving my mouse from one screen to the next, it could appear on the one that my attention has already moved away from.
it seems that the cursor will be held lightly at the edges of displays in order to avoid the frustration of overshooting a target (eg. a scrollbar). two things sprang to my mind,
1) why hold the cursor if no useful target is present, that is when no window touches the edge of the display and
2) what about holding the cursor lightly whenever it hovers over a scrollbar or a resizable edge or any other point of interest or even buttons and icons.
i don’t know how does the cursor holding heuristic currently work, but imagine that it could be done in such a way that the cursor gets held iff the user in fact intended to stop. with acceptable false positive/negative rate.
i’m further curious about the cursor holding heuristic. To avoid reinventing the wheel, could you please point me to the keywords to google for?
The prototype works well for me. Looking forward to this being part of 12.04!!
Oh nice, waiting for it for a long time.
All my company have 2 screens… and it’s quite painful for the moment.
For the presentation mode :
“right” and “left” have no sense, projector is in front or in back etc.
I will prefer something where I can “send” application or mouse to the projector.
For example : drag application to the border of the main screen -> a context menu appear and let you select to send application to the projector (in full-screen)
It’s make something really professional :)
Another idea is to “detach” screen when changing virtual desktop.
Many times I want to keep a virtual desktop at right (for example) and only change the left one. This feature is quite useful to compare many applications and improve work (because as many of us, we use more Ubuntu @ work than on my laptop).