Ok, so you have successfully configured dual monitor for you (Gnome/KDE) desktop, and now you have decided to take it even further and install and configure Avant Window Navigator – way to go!

    Although most of your installation/configuration will succeed by following one of the tutorials, in case if you have dual monitors, and/or you use Option  "MergedFB"  in "xorg.conf" to merge two monitors into a one screen, standard tutorials will not work. This will require additional hacking to get AWN to work right, and here is where this article comes in :)

    PROBLEM:    One of the problems that AWN has with multiple screens/monitors is to identify the position of where it needs to put its task bar. In case of two monitors merged into one big screen, it does not adjust to this new slightly larger "coordinate system", and fails to place its task bar to the right place on a screen (usually at the bottom of the bottom screen). This can be solved, of course ;)

    SOLUTION:   AWN stores monitor resolution info in a file called "%gconf.xml" which is located here:

          user@host:~/.gconf/apps/avant-window-navigator$ ll
          total 32
          drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-07-18 11:41 app
          drwx------ 4 user user 4096 2007-06-26 23:47 applets
          drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-08-06 21:52 bar
          -rw------- 1 user user 776 2007-09-10 09:52 %gconf.xml
          -rw------- 1 user user 776 2007-06-27 22:57 %gconf.xml.dual
          -rw------- 1 user user 776 2007-06-27 10:41 %gconf.xml.single
          drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-06-27 17:59 title
          drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-06-30 14:16 window_manager
          user@host:~/.gconf/apps/avant-window-navigator$

    "%gconf.xml" is an XML file that has several elements called "entry". The ones we are interested in would be:

 
        <entry name="monitor_height" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1024">
        </entry>
        <entry name="monitor_width" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1280">
        </entry>

    These values would work fine if we had a single 1280×1024 monitor, but if we have our (e.g.) bottom monitor as 1280×800, in order for AWN to display its task bar in a correct spot (the bottom of the bottom monitor), values have to change to:

 
        <entry name="monitor_height" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1824">
        </entry>
        <entry name="monitor_width" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1280">
        </entry>

    So what we did, we summed up Y-Positions of both monitors together: 1024 + 800 = 1824. Now when AWN is calculating its task bar’s Y-Pos offset, it will take 1824, as the Y-Pos max range, and will do the right thing!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 15:12 and is filed under cool places, hardware, howto, linux, software, tutorials. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.