X on OSX with dual monitors

[karavite]

Hi,

With the extremely generous help of jcpowers21 (sorry JC, but I cannot post without giving you full credit) I have XWindows running rootless with Windowmaker up on my Mac running OS X 10.1. I have one wierd problem with my dual monitor display - whenever I launch an application (Gimp, bluefish...) it puts the opening dialog box and some other windows right smack in the middle of the display - ie. right across the two monitors. It is kind of annoying. Anybody have an idea on how to manage this? I want to stay with running rootless, and it seems that X is "aware" I have two monitors - as always, I may just be missing something very simple here.

[scruffy]

Try OroborOSX - it's an OS X X11 window manager that takes care of that problem as well as making X11 look and act bit more mac-like.

Search for oroborosx on google, or look on versiontracker.

[strobe]

The problem with oroborOSX is it tries to immitate the Aqua appearance when X11 apps can never behave like mac apps.

I have yet to find a window manager to complement xinerama. I think it's partly due to the way XDarwin currently sets up coordinates where the origin is always in the leftmost monitor.

wmaker is definitely not xinerama aware

[scruffy]

If you can get over your (well known) aversion to any apps that aren't pure Cocoa trying to look a little like OS X apps, OroborOSX is actually pretty nice. eg. It is Xinerama aware, and the author is working to make X11 apps a bit more like OS X apps, even though, as you say, they'll never be the real thing.

Although xterm is in many ways a better terminal than Terminal.app, you must admit

[strobe]

I've always said Terminal.app sucks ass, nothing to admit there.

I've been thinking of porting Better Telnet to Mac OS X for this reason.

[karavite]

Uh, does anyone have any ideas on my original question - getting wm to stop opening eveything in between displays?

[scruffy]

Xinerama is an X11 feature that makes windows go to a sensible place when you have multiple screens. OroborOSX is 'Xinerama aware' - not exactly sure what that entails, but the upshot of it is that X windows show up firmly in one monitor or the other.

[strobe]

The problem with xinerama is few window managers are xinerama aware, and most that are have crappy xinerama support. When you run a window manager which isn't xinerama aware or run one with crappy xinerama support (or don't run one), X11 apps can end up drawing in areas which don't exist. This is due to holes created depending on the resolutions of your monitors. Even when using rootless mode on one monitor XDarwin (supposedly) uses xinerama to make the area under the menu bar off limits.

I've made a theme for OroborOSX which doesn't look like Aqua, so I've switched to that window manager for now. I sent a copy to the author so it may come with the next release. OroborOSX is a lot easier to use with the new theme I find.