Monitor Configuration
Use Cases
- Initial configuration of displays
- Presentation time
- Watching a movie (TV, other monitor)
Initial Configuration of Displays
- Allow users to set a policy - when I plug in another monitor, *this* is what I want to happen. (Their choices depend on their capabilities, ranging from new display always blank, always mirror, always a new desktop)
Allow users to drag displays left <=> right to arrange. Identify which screen is which using a colored frame or flash or some visual indication on it. Liked the idea of aligning a screen smaller than another screen along its top, bottom, or middle.
Behavior
- As soon as a monitor is plugged in, whether or not policy is to display on 2nd display or leave it blank, primary display should have a nice notification - 'Monitor plugged in - Set to mirror mode - Click here to change preference' (and the 'click here' will bring up the configuration dialog)
Presentation Time
- Most cases if I have multimonitor capable setup I want my presentation + notes in my primary display and the fullscreen presentation on the projector / display screen. Open office would need to be smart about this.
Watching a movie
- Totem idea - 'watch on tv' button where a remote control pops up on one screen and the movie plays full screen in the other (if multi monitor capable)
Constraints
- Not all users' hardware is capable of multi-monitor - most just mirror
- We can detect if a monitor is plugged in but not if a TV is plugged in
- CRTs - need to expose frequency ranges (hide behind an advanced button and use sane defaults otherwise?)
Issues
Weird dependencies? If my global preference is 'always mirror', but i'm multimonitor capable, how does my presentation software behave? Will it override my 'always mirror' settings? If so, what happens if I close up the presentation software that initiated the override? (Am I thinking about this too hard?
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