As we have discussed in the past, I use LXQt in two different configurations with my various computers. Lubuntu, which now uses LXQt as its desktop environment, is what most of my non-desktop computers use. For example a media playback computer and a laptop are normally set up with Lubuntu which is quick and easy to install as it has all the drivers included in the setup.
For my desktops I am using Debian, with LXQt on one computer in particular because this computer needs stuff like hibernation that is better supported in Debian, but also with LXQt it gets around some of the bugs in KDE which I use on other desktops, as well as ensuring the resources that KDE uses aren’t wasted in its lower spec. So I am testing these settings on that desktop because it has two screens and it is in fact the main computer that I have at the moment that these settings are important for.
Because I use this computer to do screen recording (using SimpleScreenRecorder), the screens have to be nearly at diagonal placement to each other. That is, the left hand screen and the right hand screen are to the left and right of each other, but in a vertical sense there is only a tiny overlap at the top right corner of the left screen and the bottom left corner of the right screen. This means the mouse can only be moved from one screen to the other by passing through a very small area of overlap that is in the top right corner of the left screen and the bottom left corner of the right screen, and also windows needing to be dragged from one screen to the other can be passed through this small area.
The reason for this configuration is that for screen recording, we have the software that is doing the recording running on the left (control) screen, recording the right (target) screen. We want to ensure what we need to do on the left screen does not cause anything unwanted to be displayed on the right screen. Some examples of this are:
- accidentally moving the mouse from the control screen onto the target screen
- any action on the control screen which causes pop up notifications, such as operating keyboard volume up and down. Even if the popup is on the control screen, if it is adjacent to an area of the target screen it can cause unwanted display of information on the target screen.
We ensure this by making sure as described above, minimum overlap between the two screens, just enough to get the mouse from one to the other and drag windows from one to the other. We still have to be careful not to run the control screen applications maximised to ensure the mouse is kept out of the top right corner of the control screen at all times other than actually going from one screen to the other.
The LXQt monitor settings GUI doesn’t actually position the screens exactly as we would like to. They can be aligned vertically and horizontally close to the suggested outcome, but with a small amount of unwanted superimposition of the two screens. Fortunately you aren’t limited to using that GUI to set positions. After changing the positions in the GUI and closing applying or saving settings, you can further tweak these with manual editing in the file ~/.config/lxqt/lxqt-config-monitor.conf. These seem to be just the same sort of parameter specs as running xrandr will spit out for you. Under the [currentConfig] section are the ones presently being used for the computer and with a few adjustments we can eliminate that superimposition and ensure the overlap is as small as possible. For example, with the control screen being screen 1 on HDMI-1 (settings1) at a resolution of 1440×900, xPos=0 yPos=745 are the settings and for the target screen being screen 2 on HDMI-2 (settings2) resolution 1360×768, xPos=1440 ypos=0.
The names of the displays xrandr generates for this system are interesting as it has one HDMI port, one DVI port and one VGA port, yet the DVI port appears as an HDMI port in the list of outputs. It seems this initial configuration of the displays happens just after logon. Also, the settings are saved in the user’s profile (~/.config folder) which means when reinstalling, these settings should be reused into the new installation of LXQt.