DisplayConfigGTK

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== BoF agenda and discussion ==

 * ''WolfgangSilbermayr'':Wouldn't it make more sense to implement Multi-Screen instead of Dual-Screen? I think there are more and more systems available with two PCI-Express slots and sooner or later people will want to use three or four screens.

Summary

This specification describes the user interface, packaging and code aspect of a GTK port of the displayconfig tool of guidance, the KDE system administration suite.

Rationale

Most hardware of the system is configured automatically. But this is not the case for screens and graphic cards. E.g. currently there is no graphical way in a GTK/GNOME environment to extend the desktop to a second screen.

Use Cases

  • Ilka wants to use a secondary screen for her laptop.
  • Rene wants to change the default resolution for all users.

Implementation Plan

Since guidance already provides a backend for the X server configuration written in Python, the main task will be to write a frontend with pygtk.

Implementation

User Interface

Style

To be consistent with the other system administration tools of GNOME a capplet approach using explicit apply is chosen.

Object of the capplet

The main object of the capplet are screens. But since we cannot always ensure to detect the screens and their name correctly we have to make it possible for the user to define screens by the corresponding graphics card and output.

Basic layout

The capplet is separated into three sections:

  • display mode: allows to configure the display mode of all screens
  • dual screen mode: currently only dual screen is supported by the backend
  • devices: allow to define device drivers

Ideas

  • The screen has to fit on a 640x480 screen, since this is the fallback resolution of misconfigured devices.
  • If the user clicks on the device button he or she wants to change the device. So doing an autodetection attemp and trying to select the detected device seems to be more helpful than to select the current one. Furthermore this avoids an extra click and button "select detected device".
  • Using icons for the screens that help to identify them (normal screen, widescreen, laptop panel or tv out).

Screenshots (working)

attachment:displayconfig1.jpg attachment:displayconfig2.jpg attachment:displayconfig3.jpg attachment:displayconfig4.jpg

Outstanding Issues

* How to make a clear difference between system and user settings? Should there be a difference at all? Network manager allows all user who seem to sit in front of the computer to configure the network. Perhaps we should take the same approach here too.

BoF agenda and discussion

  • WolfgangSilbermayr:Wouldn't it make more sense to implement Multi-Screen instead of Dual-Screen? I think there are more and more systems available with two PCI-Express slots and sooner or later people will want to use three or four screens.

DisplayConfigGTK (last edited 2008-08-06 16:16:51 by localhost)