[keynav-users] Feature request: Cover all (both?) screens?

[Krister Svanlund]

Hi, I currently have a dualscreen setup and one thing that bothers me
with keynav is that if my cursor is on the left screen and I want to
select something on the right screen I have to popup the grid and then
move it. It would be much smoother if I could just popup the grid and
it would cover my entire desktop (covering both screens). I understand
that this could be a difficult thing to implement with regards to
other odd setups but supporting two equal sized screens could be a
pretty fair first step anyway (IMHO).

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[Jordan Sissel]

On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 7:25 PM, Krister Svanlund <adsu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, I currently have a dualscreen setup and one thing that bothers me
> with keynav is that if my cursor is on the left screen and I want to
> select something on the right screen I have to popup the grid and then
> move it. It would be much smoother if I could just popup the grid and
> it would cover my entire desktop (covering both screens). I understand
> that this could be a difficult thing to implement with regards to
> other odd setups but supporting two equal sized screens could be a
> pretty fair first step anyway (IMHO).
>

This should be fairly easy to do. I put it on my todo list.

Related question - do you use Xinerama? If you don't know what this
means, you can tell you use Xinerama if you are able to drag windows
between monitors. Additionally, this may show it too:

% grep -i xinerama /var/log/Xorg.0.log
(II) Loading extension XINERAMA
(II) Initializing built-in extension XINERAMA

-Jordan

[Eric S Fraga]

Jordan Sissel <j...@semicomplete.com> writes:

> On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 7:25 PM, Krister Svanlund <adsu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi, I currently have a dualscreen setup and one thing that bothers me
>> with keynav is that if my cursor is on the left screen and I want to
>
>> select something on the right screen I have to popup the grid and then
>> move it. It would be much smoother if I could just popup the grid and
>> it would cover my entire desktop (covering both screens). I understand
>> that this could be a difficult thing to implement with regards to
>> other odd setups but supporting two equal sized screens could be a
>> pretty fair first step anyway (IMHO).
>>
>
> This should be fairly easy to do. I put it on my todo list.

Any update on this two year old posting? I have a related issue
although not quite the same as the OP's.

I am using keynav 0.20101224 as comes with Ubuntu 11.10. I use it in
conjunction with ratpoison as my window manager; a marriage made in
heaven!

My situation is as follows: keynav will pop up the navigation grid on
the monitor which has the mouse already there and the grid only covers
that monitor. To have the grid appear on the other monitor, I have to
manually move the mouse over (yech: having to take my hands off the
keyboard!).

I can probably configure ratpoison to allow me to have the mouse move to
the other monitor but that implies extra keys to accomplish what I
want. My preferred solution would be for the grid to come up spanning
both monitors and then I can immediately move left or right (monitors
are side by side in my usual case).

Is a newer version of keynav available that maybe helps out with this?
Or is there anything I can configure in keynav that would allow it to
span the dual monitors?

> Related question - do you use Xinerama? If you don't know what this
> means, you can tell you use Xinerama if you are able to drag windows
> between monitors. Additionally, this may show it too:
>
> % grep -i xinerama /var/log/Xorg.0.log
> (II) Loading extension XINERAMA
> (II) Initializing built-in extension XINERAMA

In my case:

$ grep -i xinerama Xorg.0.log
[ 14.866] (II) Initializing built-in extension XINERAMA

and with other window managers (e.g. fluxbox), I can definitely drag
windows across. The two monitors operate under as a single display
(:0).

Thanks,
eric

--
: Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D) in Emacs 24.1.50.1 + Ma Gnus v0.4

[Jordan Sissel]

Last I recall (haven't had dual monitors in ages), keynav is Xinerama aware.

When you start keynav's selector grid, if you use any movement keys, it will move to the next monitor (left/right respectively).

I used this for a while when I had dual monitors, so it should still work for you.

-Jordan

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

On 05/04/2012 02:27 AM, Jordan Sissel wrote:
> Last I recall (haven't had dual monitors in ages), keynav is Xinerama aware.
>
> When you start keynav's selector grid, if you use any movement keys, it
> will move to the next monitor (left/right respectively).

hmm, i use dual monitors positioned vertically (LVDS1 is below VGA1),
and keynav makes some strange assumptions about monitor edges.

In particular, it looks to me like moving left or right allows it to
consider switching monitors internally, but the selector grid remains on
the same monitor visually.

my (admittedly unusual) setup is:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1024 x 1880, maximum 4096 x 4096
LVDS1 connected 1024x600+0+1280 (normal left inverted right x axis y
axis) 0mm x 0mm
VGA1 connected 1024x1280+0+0 left (normal left inverted right x axis y
axis) 337mm x 270mm

Note that VGA1 is positioned in a portrait mode ("left" rotated), rather
than a landscape mode. I don't know if that's contributing to keynav's
confusion or not.

--dkg

[Jordan Sissel]

I think keynav probably assumes horizontal relative positioning of monitors only. 

For specific details, when the grid is moved outside the boundary of the current screen, keynav uses the 'correct_overflow' function to try and guess which viewport (screen) to move to, if any. Judging by the code, this only supports left and right orientations. The 'viewports' list is populated by the 'query_screens' function and is sorted from left-to-right with qsort calling viewport_sort as a comparator. Given this, only left-or-right positioned multi-monitor layouts are well supported by keynav.

I'm happy to accept patches that fix keynav to be more intelligent about directionality and choosing the correct screen to move to.

I haven't worked on keynav much lately, mainly due to the fact that it behaves poorly in gnome3 (due to bugs in gnome3) and I have yet make time finding a window manager to replace it. :(

-Jordan

[Eric S Fraga]

Jordan Sissel <j...@semicomplete.com> writes:

[...]

> Last I recall (haven't had dual monitors in ages), keynav is Xinerama aware.
>
> When you start keynav's selector grid, if you use any movement keys, it
> will move to the next monitor (left/right respectively).

Ah ha! That's it. Using /movement/ keys (e.g. H and L) does the job
beautifully. And it makes perfect intuitive sense.

I <blush> hadn't considered movement keys as my previous experience with
dual monitors, on another computer, the grid started centred between the
two monitors. I (mistakenly) thought that keynav was, in my current
configuration, ignoring the other monitor because it started centred on
an individual monitor.

Many thanks,