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Bug 346162 - notification areas on 2nd, 3rd X screens don't work at all
notification areas on 2nd, 3rd X screens don't work at all
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 621584
Product: gnome-panel
Classification: Other
Component: notification area
2.26.x
Other All
: Normal major
: ---
Assigned To: Panel Maintainers
Panel Maintainers
: 388906 475770 558746 561301 (view as bug list)
Depends on: 125257
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2006-06-29 00:09 UTC by Christoph Anton Mitterer
Modified: 2015-03-24 13:01 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: 2.29/2.30



Description Christoph Anton Mitterer 2006-06-29 00:09:18 UTC
Please describe the problem:
I'm using a dual headed monitor setup but not with one large desktop (via Xinerama or TwinView) but two several X screens (e.g. 0.0 and 0.1).
I have panels on both screens and also notification areas on the panels on both screens.
When I launch an application (like gaim or ekiga) on screen 0 it shows up in the notification area on screen 0. It does not appear in the panel on screen 1 (this behaviour is desired in my opinion).
But when I launch the application on screen 1 it does not show up in any notification area (it should show up only in the notification area on screen 1)

Steps to reproduce:


Actual results:


Expected results:


Does this happen every time?
Yes it happens every time.

Other information:
Comment 1 Simon Wood 2006-07-11 22:42:53 UTC
Hi,
After typing up several replies and then re-reading your report I think I understand what you are saying....

You have a 'multi screen' setup, each screen has different DISPLAY setting (0.0 and 0.1). 

Applications started on one can't be dragged between the screens.

When you start Ekiga on 0.0 it displays and correctly uses notification area on 0.0 screen. 

However when you start Ekiga on 0.1, it displays but nothing appears in notification area on 0.1 (as you would expect it to).


Q. Do other applications correctly use 0.1 notification area? (Can you give an example of a working application - to review the code to find out if they do something different).

Q. If you use a console on 0.0, 'export DISPLAY=:0.1' and start Ekiga (from command line) does notification area work?

Cheers,
Simon.

PS. Why are you running 'multi screen' rather than 'multi head' (ie. with Xinerema)?
Comment 2 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2006-07-11 22:59:20 UTC
>After typing up several replies and then re-reading your report I think I
>understand what you are saying....
Is my english so bad?! ;-)

>You have a 'multi screen' setup, each screen has different DISPLAY setting
>(0.0 and 0.1).
Yes.

>Applications started on one can't be dragged between the screens.
Yes,.. but this is another thing I'm going to report, of course windows can't be moved from one screen to the other as when I'd use Xinerama,.. but it should be possible to do something like "Completely move the window to another screen". I mean an option in the context menu like the "move to virtual desktop x".

>When you start Ekiga on 0.0 it displays and correctly uses notification area on
>0.0 screen.
Yes,.. same thing with gaim and other applications using the notification area.

>However when you start Ekiga on 0.1, it displays but nothing appears in
>notification area on 0.1 (as you would expect it to).
Yes. Which is especially bad if one starts Ekiga in "hidden mode" ;).


>Q. Do other applications correctly use 0.1 notification area? (Can you give an
>example of a working application - to review the code to find out if they do
>something different).
No. I have not found any application that uses notification areas on screens other than 0.0 correctly.
That applies to Ekiga, gaim and as far as I can say it now to a plugin for Thunderbird.


>Q. If you use a console on 0.0, 'export DISPLAY=:0.1' and start Ekiga (from 
>command line) does notification area work?
No. I had this already tested before my initial report ;)


>PS. Why are you running 'multi screen' rather than 'multi head' (ie. with
>Xinerema)?
Personally I dislike the idea behind Xinerama at all. Although doing much programming work and so, I rarely have single windows that take more space than one screen, and even if ther is some space (about 1,5 cm) between the two screens which makes the whole thing ugly to me ;)
What I prefer is having several independant (X)screens. The bigges advantage is that one can have individually controlled virtual desktops on each.
But there are still a lot of problems for all this in GNOME. Especially usability stuff.
Most (but not all) are described in this bug: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=325225
I've posted it with an old account unfortunately.
It describes lots of problems that currently exist. From moving windows to focus hotkeys and so on ;)
Unfortunately it did not get much response as it seems to be to big ;)
Comment 3 Vincent Untz 2006-08-08 23:24:07 UTC
Thanks for the bug report. This particular bug has already been reported into our bug tracking system, but please feel free to report any further bugs you find.


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 115704 ***
Comment 4 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2007-07-09 11:00:00 UTC
I've reopened the bug because 115704 is closed. But the problem was definitely not resolved as you can see by some comments from other users to that bug.

The notification area still doesn't work on screens != #0 which is very annoying.
My current GNOME is the 2.18 from Debian sid (I think they've already incorporated the changes from the lastest update of 2.18).

Please ask for any further information you require.

Chris.
Comment 5 Sebastien Bacher 2007-08-06 08:47:20 UTC
There is a similar Ubuntu bug on https://bugs.launchpad.net/gnome-panel/+bug/128735
Comment 6 Vincent Untz 2007-09-11 09:33:46 UTC
*** Bug 475770 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 7 lhshas 2007-12-01 22:47:49 UTC
Perhaps you should close this bug,... and specify that gnome doesn't support advanced setups and will continue even more to produce a windows like (at-the-very-most-)end-user-only desktop.

this is so old now and it seems it will never be fixed,.. just like lots of other multiscreen related bugs that are floating around here, and just the same as with dozens of missing features like specifying different wallpapers for different workspaces etc. etc.
Comment 8 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2007-12-01 23:06:36 UTC
While I agree with you,... that the way GNOME fixes its bugs (namly not) and introduces new features (well sometimes I even fell as if they would outro-duce as much features as possible) should be reworked from scratch,
I must say that bugzilla is not the approrpiate place for discussion this.
Perhaps you might consider to switch to another desktop environment that is more targeted at non-windows users ;)
Chris.
Comment 9 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2007-12-12 03:28:54 UTC
Is there any way to speed up fixing of this bug?
It exists so long and I remember that there were even some much earlier reports of this problem.

GNOMEs multiscreen support is already very very limited (not to say broken) but this particular bug makes using a 2nd screen very uncomfortable. Especially with applications like ekiga/pidgin...
Comment 10 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2007-12-13 02:01:21 UTC
@Vincent: Is it possible that your patch (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=70519&action=view) simply got lost?

Or have there been so many changes to that applet?

Chris.
Comment 11 Pavel Šefránek 2008-02-03 14:38:47 UTC
*** Bug 388906 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 12 André Klapper 2008-02-03 15:35:34 UTC
(gnome version 2.23 does not exist yet, and please also reset the verison info. restoring previous values.)
Comment 13 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2008-02-04 00:33:28 UTC
Sry ;-) But woooow! Now we have a target milestone! Perhaps this means that the bug will be fixed in uhm... 2.26 ;-)
Comment 14 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2008-03-14 23:35:22 UTC
FYI: the issue still exists with GNOME 2.22 :-(
Comment 15 Pavel Šefránek 2008-03-15 07:26:35 UTC
Still occurs in 2.22, changing version and target (postponed).
Comment 16 Mace Moneta 2008-05-18 21:47:50 UTC
Just adding myself to this bug, and noting that this can have other consequences.  For example, when opening an application set to start minimized, the lack of a notification icon means that there is no GUI to interface with the application at all.

As an example, Amarok can be set to start this way, and the window is normally activated by clicking on the notification icon.  Since no icon is visible in any notification area when starting on the second display, the user must kill the application from the command line (or leave an inaccessible application always running).
Comment 17 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2008-12-13 01:20:43 UTC
Anything new here during the last year (5th year of this bug ^^)?
Comment 18 CShadowRun 2009-02-07 18:55:04 UTC
Sigh, 4 years...no fix, not impressed. Very upset.
Comment 19 Felix Kaser 2009-02-26 09:29:14 UTC
I can confirm this bug on ubuntu 8.10 with gnome 2.24.1!

workaround: use awn or something similar!
Comment 20 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2009-03-19 09:20:01 UTC
Anyone who has tested this with 2.26?
Comment 21 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2009-05-22 22:11:56 UTC
lol,.. now they broke even virtual desktop support with multiple screens (since 2.24 IIRC) ^^
Comment 22 Philip Withnall 2009-05-31 12:03:46 UTC
*** Bug 558746 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 23 Philip Withnall 2009-05-31 12:12:05 UTC
*** Bug 561301 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 24 Bruce Guenter 2009-06-15 12:22:28 UTC
I can confirm this is still a problem with gnome-panel 2.26.2 (on Gentoo)
Comment 25 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2009-12-21 12:53:28 UTC
btw: Using compiz instead of the buggy GNOME WM's fixes a lot of multiscreen related issues. Unfortunately not this one.
Comment 26 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2010-05-17 11:32:24 UTC
Since 2.30 this has changed a bit:
While applications still don't show up in the notification areas of further screens, they seem to be in them somehow.

Before, when starting e.g. pidgin and closing the last window, the process was closed, too.
Now, when starting pidgin and closing the last windows, the process remains,.... and with a "$ pidgin" on the console, I can recreate a window of the very same process.
Comment 27 Vincent Untz 2010-06-22 03:19:17 UTC
I think Ray's patch in bug 621584 will fix this.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 621584 ***