[xmonad] XMonad + Xinerama + Gnome + Ubuntu = No Love

[Wirt Wolff]

Excerpts from fREW Schmidt's message of Tue Jun 02 18:41:44 -0600 2009:
> Hey guys,
> 
> I am using xmonad with gnome on my dual screen desktop and I am getting some
> really weird results.  Windows will show up correctly on both monitors, but
> switching desktops (with Meta 1, 2, 3) doesn't switch both of the monitors,
> only the active one.  It's like the non active screen follows me and
> sometimes switches sides...  Very strange.
> 
> Any ideas what could be wrong?
> 

Each physical screen by default shows a different workspace. When you mod-N
to a different *visible* workspace, the current one swaps with the other one.
you can change that if you don't like the swapping, (see section below
about greedyView and view), but with mod-w,e,r to focus different screens
this default behaviour works quite well for many people.

To illustrate with two monitors, using the convention "[1*] [3 ]" to mean
workspaces 1 and 3 are visible with left monitor the currently active
one: 

[1*] [3 ] -- mod-3 --> [3*] [1 ] -- mod-e, mod-4 --> [1 ] [4*]

[1 ] [4*] -- mod-1, mod-w --> [4*] [1 ]

By replacing the 'greedyView' function with 'view' in the workspace
switching bindings (copy from the Template xmonad.hs for your xmonad
version) you can have your focus shift to the monitor displaying the
given workspace, instead of having that workspace 'brought to you.' For
example:

[1*] [3 ] -- mod-3 --> [1 ] [3*] -- mod-4 --> [1 ] [4*]

[1 ] [4*] -- mod-1, mod-4 --> [4*] [1 ] 

There is an example of replacing greedyView with view at

http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/?title=Xmonad/Frequently_asked_questions#Replacing_greedyView_with_view

-- 
wmw