Nikos Chantziaras posted on Sat, 08 Jun 2013 05:13:24 +0300 as excerpted:
> Currently, when I switch my monitor to a lower resolution and then back,
> the icons on my desktop are rearranged. Is there a way to prevent that
> from happening? Basically what I'm looking for is a setting for the
> desktop (I'm using folder view set to ~/Desktop) to remember the icon
> positions for different desktop sizes and have it work similar to the
> Windows 7 desktop.
I don't have a direct answer, but here's what I know/understand:
1) There's some distinction between different multi-monitor configs, and
different resolutions with the same number of monitors. Plasma (and kde
in general) has always had problems with the former, because it could
only retain one monitor layout config at a time. That is changing. In
4.10 there was a new optional monitor layout manager that could handle
multiple layout profiles, but AFAIK it was still experimental and not
considered ready for prime-time yet. I'm hoping it's ready for 4.11,
however. But I've not used it yet as my main machine that I always run
the latest kde on (actually live-branch latest, so ahead of actual
releases most of the time, but not development trunk, so 4.10 branch ATM,
to be switched to 4.11 soon as 4.11 beta-1 is released) is workstation
with a set multi-monitor config that rarely changes.
I have a netbook too, which is where I've always had problems as it has a
limited resolution built-in display and I like to run it plugged into one
of my big monitors, but need it to work on the single display as well,
and that has always been a recipe for problems due to kde remembering
only a single profile, which on my netbook is constantly changing between
built-in-only and built-in-plus-external.
But I only tend to update the netbook once a year or so, so it's running
a much older kde, without the new multi-monitor handling to try.
2) Plasma has for some time had multi-resolution support on the same set
of monitors, but even that has been a work in progress, maturing slowly
as the kde4 series progresses and as plasma itself matures (early plasma,
thru kde 4.3 at least, was basically a demo-stub, missing huge amounts of
planned functionality, 4.5 was the first I considered reasonably usable
by normal people, and only 4.7 began to see some of the envisioned
features, which are actually still maturing in 4.10; note that 4.11 is
set to be the last 4.x series plasma feature release, after which it will
stabilize and bug-fix-only until kde-frameworks-5 and plasma2). But with
4.9 and 4.10 it should work at least reasonably well with the default
desktop layout where the focus is for a normal desktop. (FWIW this is
what I use on both my main machine and my netbook.)
3) The folderview desktop, by contrast, has been somewhat of a red-headed-
stepchild. Originally, the plasma devs didn't implement it at all,
preferring what they considered the more modern default desktop with
multiple plasmoids layout for a normal monitor setup, and the search and
launch and newspaper view for limited-resolution small-screen mobiles
(including limited-resolution netbooks like mine). However, users
rebelled, and plasma brought back the traditional icon-based desktop
folder view as an option, which it remains today. But I don't believe
any plasma devs run it and I don't see it getting much attention or
development as they consider that a dead-end -- legacy support they're
basically dragging along to support the Luddites, but that they'd prefer
to drop if they could, just as they did early on, before they brought it
back due to user protest.
4) The search-and-launch and newspaper-view layouts are seeing heavy
attention as they're the designated mobile targets and that's where all
the focus is these days, but I've not actually used them enough to have
more than a passing familiarity with them, and for all I know they're
designed for fixed-low-resolution mobile, so how they deal with
resolution change I haven't the foggiest.
5) I'm not sure about the grouping and grid desktops. I've tried them,
but couldn't see much difference between that and the default desktop,
and I've seen little information about them, so I haven't any real idea
what they're for except the hints provided by the names themselves. But
given that the behavior /did/ seem close to that of the default desktop
when I tried them, I'd _guess_ they're simply variants of that and have
similar multi-monitor and multi-resolution handling status.
Taken together, then, the above means you're probably pretty much on your
own with the folderview desktop, as that seems to be pretty much kept
running and that's it. The default desktop's probably your best bet for
a reasonably sized/resolutioned monitor and should be best supported for
that and multi-monitor, with search-and-launch and newspaper-view getting
heavy attention too as mobile targets, but as such, I'm not sure what
they're multi-resolution handling status is.
--
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
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