Dual head $DISPLAY variable?

steve@physics.queensu.ca · Mon Oct 18, 2004 6:24 am

I've had zero success with dual displays for blender in linux. The contents of a window won't display on the second monitor. My guess is that blender uses OpenGL and and won't work under Xinerama but I may be wrong.
(admittedly I've been using separate Vid cards).

If another $DISPLAY variable (say RENDER_DISPLAY) could be set to direct the output for the render and play windows to another screen, it would improve the working envirorment. Render windows would still be visible and would not need to be dismissed or unraised to get access the work interface.

Alternately, a "dual display" bolean switch could assume the the second
display is using the ":1" display.

Redirecting the output almost sounds easy but I don't know how technical the mouse/keyboard (zoom/pan) interaction becomes on a second display
If I get positive feedback I'll place a feature request.

-steve

jesterKing · Post by **jesterKing** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 9:28 am

I have been successfully using two monitors under Linux with Blender. It's just that I resize the window manually (or ie with startup params ./blender -w -p 0 0 2500 1000). For this I had one big desktop, not two seperate ones. Also, I have them on one videocard.

/Nathan

bertram · Post by **bertram** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:30 am

At this point may I refer to the following post, whose response was very dissatisfying:
http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=m ... pic&t=4762
Aren't there some more people out there who use or want to use dual head display?
The method of resizing the window manually IMHO is no option.

jesterKing · Post by **jesterKing** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:49 am

bertram wrote:The method of resizing the window manually IMHO is no option.

Why is resizing the window not an option? It is IMHO very usable, even if it is not 100% similar to maximizing the application. I find this working more than well on both Windows and Linux.

/Nathan

bertram · Post by **bertram** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 12:42 pm

I mean that it's not an option regarding to the comfort and ease of use. The UI-extensions of my graphics card driver does offer a special button for maximizing across two screens. But when I then hit the fullscreen-button of blender, it only becomes fullscreen on one of the screens. That's why I rated blender as not being designed for dual head operation.
The second issue is with the maximization of single views. It would be very useful not to maximize the view across both screens. Instead,... well, I've already written it down in the thread that I've linked above.

solmax · Post by **solmax** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 9:06 am

hm, hm.. don't agree. i used blender successfully over two years on two monitors under XP, and i loved it. i admit i had some troubles at the beginning to find the right setup (single desktop, 3200x1200px), but once done i didn't wanna miss it. true is that it didn't start up in fullscreen mode, but i was mentally strong enough to live with that and do it manually after startup. maximizing veiwports..wasn't necessary, since i - guess what - had two monitors and had enough space for everything. but if this is important, you could easily customize your screens-setup with two large viewports, each one exactly on one monitor. Ctrl+RIGHTARROW takes you there and Ctrl+LEFTARROW takes you back. almost the same as uparrow/downarrow.

bertram · Post by **bertram** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 12:24 pm

solmax wrote:i was mentally strong enough to live with that

Pardon?
Well, then it's apparently because I am a little daffy that I feel unhappy with the current solution!

solmax wrote:Ctrl+RIGHTARROW takes you there and Ctrl+LEFTARROW takes you back.

I've been thinking of this too. But since the choice of a scene is linked to each screen and is not global it doesn't work flawless when having multiple scenes.
So there would be the need for an option to blender which enables changes of a scene in one screen to be applied to all screens.

Furthermore one of the reasons why I have many views that I want to maximize if necessary is that I have activated different layer-sets in each view. Additionally I have different layer-sets in different screens. This is to keep track of complex scenes.
An alternative would be a makeover of the layer-system which would allow the definition of layer-sets (which could be accessible by shortcuts).

joeri · Post by **joeri** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 12:43 pm

Hi, me with my big mouth.
If there is someone daffy then it's me, let's keep that out of the topic.

Definition of layer-sets is a very good idea, but not the solution to dual head display. (put it in the feature tracker! I love it.)

I think the best solution to dual head is multiple windows. If blender can open 3 windows (console / Gui / renderWin ) I don't see why it can't open 4 (or 5 or 6 for triple/qaudriple display). This would make it possible to have different gfx-cards and different screen settings. Now for the implementation... Putting the render output on display 2 is a good start.

steve@physics.queensu.ca · Wed Oct 20, 2004 4:39 am

I've wondered whether it would make sense to have the whole interface have dockable/undockable windows. I'm afraid that this might make some things more confusing but then you wouldn't be constrained when trying to change the size of a particular window.

Another CRAZY idea would be the netscape/mozilla method of using multiple Tabs.
It would be similar to the current "screen" and/or "scene" menu at the top of the
blender window.

Anyone what to chew on that?

bannerboy · Post by **bannerboy** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 4:39 am

You're not alone, I want to do the same thing, I've got a sony flat pannel that I use for everything, but I've got this stinky Acer CRT that I want to use for my render window and am looking for some way to do it.

BTW: I'm running linux.

z3r0_d · Post by **z3r0_d** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 6:02 am

steve@physics.queensu.ca wrote:I've wondered whether it would make sense to have the whole interface have dockable/undockable windows. I'm afraid that this might make some things more confusing but then you wouldn't be constrained when trying to change the size of a particular window.

ick

one of the great things about blender's interface is that things don't occlude the ui, dockable windows completely destroys that concept [and I don't like the N key panel, or window properties panel if you understand, why can't they just be extensions of the menu?]

steve@physics.queensu.ca wrote:Another CRAZY idea would be the netscape/mozilla method of using multiple Tabs.
It would be similar to the current "screen" and/or "scene" menu at the top of the
blender window.

sounds a lot like xsi

[try to get a hang of the exp version, you'll see what I mean]

hello · Post by **hello** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 7:29 pm

Currently, I am able to use Blender over two monitors in Linux. I'm not sure if it's the way the driver handles the two screens (nvidia), but when using Gnome, blender will by default span both screens. At this point it can get anoying because of the boundary down the middle, so I just split the whole blender window in half.

As far as moving the blender window in linux, the window manager, at least with gnome, usually has a configurator for keyboard shortcuts so you can see or change the hotkeys for certain window actions. When the blender window is active, you can use the window manager shortcut to move it (alt-F7 in gnome). Unfortunately, blender wont resize because there is no window border, but it seems that you can use the window manager hotkey for fullscreen (alt-F10 in gnome), and it will make the blender window full screen only on one monitor: whatever monitor the center of the blender window is on (kinda nifty).

I don't know if this works the same way with DRI and the ATI drivers, and right now I only use gnome so I don't know the shortcuts for KDE.

Anyway, hope that helps.

bannerboy · Post by **bannerboy** » Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:55 pm

I just want to have it render on the stinky acer CRT i am using as a second monitor.

solmax · Post by **solmax** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 8:21 pm

yo baannerboy could you please get rid of your huge signature-banner?!!! it's annoying, and as you can see ppl in here don't need such things