[xmonad] Managing Multiple Displays

[Eyal Erez]

Thank you all for the wonderful suggestions.  There are definitely many
good options available that I was not aware of.

I've tried a few and autorandr seems like a good addition into my already
(more or less) working workflow.  It solves the specific problem that I've
described.  In the future, I might try and replace my custom script with a
different end-to-end solution.



On Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 2:22 PM Tomas Janousek <tomi at nomi.cz> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Fri, Jul 09, 2021 at 05:14:54PM +0300, Eyal Erez wrote:
>
> I often use multiple displays. Here are some configurations that I've used
> {.quotelead}>with my laptop:
>
> […]
> I was wondering how others deal with this challenge? Are there other, more
> well-built tools, than the script I have to do this more robustly and
> automatically?
>
> There are many ways to do this. I'll describe my setup and then point to
> some alternatives.
> ------------------------------
>
> I have a script <https://work.lisk.in/2020/10/11/xrandr-ux.html> that
> extends xrandr command-line usage so that I can just write a generic
> vertical layout like so:
>
>  xrandr-smart --output 'eDP-*' --auto \
>               --output '!(eDP-*)' --auto --above 'eDP-*'
>
> Then I have another script
> <https://github.com/liskin/dotfiles/blob/home/bin/layout-auto> that lets
> me save layouts for specific configurations
> <https://github.com/liskin/dotfiles/tree/home/bin/.xlayout> of connected
> monitors. This one is invoked automatically whenever an output is
> connected/disconnected, using
> https://xmonad.github.io/xmonad-docs/xmonad-contrib-0.16.999/XMonad-Hooks-Rescreen.html#v:addRandrChangeHook
> .
> I can also invoke it manually via a keybinding to force a laptop-only
> layout, or to force an automatic multi-head layout in an unknown setup. If
> I need something extra (like external monitor only for games), I just
> invoke a "layout-extonly" script via rofi
> <https://github.com/davatorium/rofi> (I only need to type "ex" for it to
> know what I mean).
>
> (Re)starting xmobars and trayers is handled by
> https://xmonad.github.io/xmonad-docs/xmonad-contrib-0.16.999/XMonad-Hooks-StatusBar.html#v:dynamicSBs,
> as mentioned by Yecine earlier.
>
> In my setup, the automatic switching doesn't happen when the screen is
> locked, and neither do the keybindings work, but that is just my paranoia
> (and yeah, I should just use
> https://packages.debian.org/experimental/cryptsetup-suspend instead :-)).
> It's totally possible to let X.H.Rescreen invoke the script even if locked,
> and xsecurelock <https://github.com/google/xsecurelock> allows
> configuration of keybindings when the screen is locked.
> ------------------------------
>
> Now for the alternatives:
>
> Others have mentioned autorandr. That is probably what most minimalist
> window manager users use. Autorandr can be invoked on output (dis)connect,
> lid open/close and suspend/resume in various ways:
>
>    -
>    https://xmonad.github.io/xmonad-docs/xmonad-contrib-0.16.999/XMonad-Hooks-Rescreen.html#v:addRandrChangeHook
>    - https://github.com/jceb/srandrd
>    -
>    https://github.com/phillipberndt/autorandr/blob/master/contrib/autorandr_launcher/autorandr_launcher.c
>    -
>    https://github.com/phillipberndt/autorandr/blob/master/contrib/listen_lid.sh
>    -
>    https://github.com/phillipberndt/autorandr/blob/master/contrib/pm-utils/40autorandr
>
> Also see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/xrandr for other tools and tips.
> --
> Tomáš "liskin" ("Pivník") Janoušek, https://work.lisk.in/
>


-- 
*Eyal Erez <**oneself at gmail.com* <oneself at gmail.com>*>*

There are 10 types of people, those who know binary and those who don't.
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