For Display settings, 4.11 has added a simple GUI for the most common configurations for a two-monitor setup. That's a good step. It has targetted: Mirrored Only Display 1 Only Display 2 Extend desktop to the right I would like to suggest that we should add "Extend desktop to the left". This is certainly my most common need, and I suspect for many others. "Extend to the left" is particularly significant for developers or anyone who wants to take advantage of a large display in a "docking station" type of environment, because the leftmost display is where all new applications will start by default, so you want the larger display to be on the left. In addition, "Extend to the left" is that hardest setup to do manually, so a little help is of great benefit. It's harder because you have to change the X coord for *both* displays, since the one which will be on the right used to have X:0. The new config will have the monitor on the left with X:0 and the monitor on the right with X:width-of-left-display Adding this final configuration completes the matrix for 2-display configurations. I think it adds an important common configuration which is currently missing.
Indeed, 'extend to the left' is a very commonly desired setup and you're not the first to ask about it. Unfortunately, Xfce simply will not ride shotgun. It commanderes the left-most display to use as the "primary" then proceeds to build your panels, docks, and whatever else. (I think it's top-left-most but I don't have that many monitors. ;) ) Based on such behavior, I suspect fulfilling this request will not be a simple addition but a major re-write. It might even be a deeper component than Xfce. Regardless, I agree it's an idea past it's time.
See also: bug 7465, bug 8328, bug 8936, bug 8115, bug 8265, bug 8274, bug 9200, bug 9477, and bug 10219
I'm perplexed as to why this is deemed difficult (not terribly surprising since I know little about the details ;) Since I don't have a shortcut, I have written a simple script to accomplish what I need ("LVDS1" is my laptop native display): DISP=$(xrandr -q | awk '/ connected/ && ! /LVDS1/ {print $1}') xrandr --output $DISP --auto --output LVDS1 --auto --right-of $DISP This is probably a dumb script and could be done more elegantly, but the point is to determine the port the external monitor is connected to (sometimes I use my HDMI port, sometimes my VGA-out port), and then to extend the desktop to it, on the left. This seems to work just dandy for me. Switching back to one display is less awesome. I use: DISP=$(xrandr -q | awk '/ connected/ && ! /LVDS1/ {print $1}') xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --output $DISP --off But in this case it doesn't really seem to resize the desktop properly - some apps continue to think they have more real-estate than they actually do. The "Workspace Switcher" applet seems to display the previous desktop size as well. I think if I suspend/resume things work as expected again. This feels very close to the right experience for me. So why should this be so difficult in the GUI?
Perhaps you are suggesting that you'd like the panels, docks, etc to remain on the right display? Not me! I am very happy with the panels, docks, etc to move to the larger monitor since that's now going to be my primary monitor until I move back to a single display. I think in fact that's probably going to be the most commonly-desired situation. Does that make things easier? The only "fly in the ointment" I am finding is when moving back to a single monitor as described above. However I am assuming either this is a result of my ignorance or some bugs which hopefully can be addressed without too much problem.
P.S. As a bonus to moving the panels etc to the larger display on the left, the smaller laptop display now gets some extra real-estate so you can make more effective use of the screen for those app windows you'd like to place there (assuming you're not using auto-hide types of features).
You've correctly analysed why "extend to the right" is there and "to the left" is not. One of the most common use-cases is connecting a projector (or the like) for a presentation, and then it's nice if the world doesn't see your messy desktop and all the panels, but the display in front of you contains all that. With the new display dialog you can drag and drop the display to whereever you want, so achieving a left-of setup is really a breeze. Following this train of thought, I don't think we will implement another button in the minimal dialog (otherwise at some point it's not "minimal" anymore, others might start to ask for "above" and "below" to be included as well..)