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Bug 702728 - Multimonitor - keep windows on the primary display
Multimonitor - keep windows on the primary display
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: gnome-shell
Classification: Core
Component: general
3.22.x
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: gnome-shell-maint
gnome-shell-maint
docking-station
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2013-06-20 10:29 UTC by Allan Day
Modified: 2021-07-05 14:40 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Allan Day 2013-06-20 10:29:08 UTC
I have an external monitor which I use as a primary display. When I plug in my laptop, my existing windows stay on the laptop display, and I have to manually move them over to the external, one at a time.

It would be much more convenient if the windows were moved to the new primary display when it is connected.
Comment 1 Kamil Páral 2013-06-21 16:54:38 UTC
This is probably a long time regression of bug 645408. GNOME should remember which windows were lastly used on a particular display in that particular configuration, and move them there. A simple example is:

1) Dual monitor setup: xchat on the internal monitor, firefox on the external monitor
2) Undock/disconnect external monitor -> both xchat and firefox on the internal monitor
3) Dock/connect external monitor again -> xchat stays on the internal monitor, firefox is moved to the external monitor, as in 1)

What's even better, it is supposed to remember even workspaces, so it should not just move the app to the correct monitor, but even to the correct workspace.

To be honest, I never remember it working, even some years back, although bug 645408 is marked as resolved.

It would be great to have this fixed again, I must spend some time to manually shuffle windows every time I dock/undock my notebook.
Comment 2 Kamil Páral 2014-06-17 07:40:35 UTC
There is a new gnome-shell extension which fixes this problem:
https://github.com/aiguofer/return-to-monitor

Maybe gnome-shell developers could simply take the code? It doesn't seem to be complicated. Thanks.
Comment 3 Florian Müllner 2014-06-17 07:45:24 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> Maybe gnome-shell developers could simply take the code? It doesn't seem to be
> complicated.

Filed as bug 731760.
Comment 4 Alexandre Franke 2016-12-28 11:27:45 UTC
Shall we mark this as fixed then?
Comment 5 Kamil Páral 2017-01-03 11:21:45 UTC
No, bug 731760 did not fix this. After undocking, windows are kept at the correct workspaces, but after docking back, all windows are squashed to a secondary monitor to the first workspace.
Comment 6 Alexandre Franke 2017-01-03 13:51:14 UTC
Let's update the version field then. 3.22?
Comment 7 Kamil Páral 2017-01-04 09:10:07 UTC
gnome-shell-3.22.2-2.fc25.x86_64
Comment 8 GNOME Infrastructure Team 2021-07-05 14:40:04 UTC
GNOME is going to shut down bugzilla.gnome.org in favor of  gitlab.gnome.org.
As part of that, we are mass-closing older open tickets in bugzilla.gnome.org
which have not seen updates for a longer time (resources are unfortunately
quite limited so not every ticket can get handled).

If you can still reproduce the situation described in this ticket in a recent
and supported software version, then please follow
  https://wiki.gnome.org/GettingInTouch/BugReportingGuidelines
and create a new ticket at
  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/

Thank you for your understanding and your help.