I used to run gnome on my old linux box, a Pentium 133 MHz, with a Redhat 7.0 distribution. That machine has a pretty dirt old video card in it, and the monitor isn't exactly new. So, I had some resolution issues, and working with windows with lots of information usually meant that I let the window overlap into one of the adjacent workspaces. At the time, I moved windows to different workspaces by just dragging them half into the next workspace, changing workspaces, and pulling it the rest of the way through.

Anyway, I have a slightly newer machine running Slackware 9.1, and I began running gnome 2.4 on it, but I just realized that my current configuration doesn't let me push windows into the adjacent workspaces like I was able to with my older gnome version. I'm certainly not set on gnome though. I would like to set up fluxbox or blackbox with the same capabilities.

If anyone has any ideas how I can doctor a config file to give me the ability to shift windows half into another workspace, I would appreciate it. It's helpful to me at the moment because I'm working with a developing gui code of someone elses make, and there are no scroll bars built into it. So, my best chance in using it properly is to just let it flop over onto the next workspace.

Thanks,
Cracraft

I don't think flux or blackbox can do this, but I may be mistaken. Even if you don't get it working, one solution to your problem of window-bigger-than-screen is to use the "move" hotkeys in your favorite WM. In Flux and BB (and I think also KDE), you can use Alt-click-drag to move a window around without being able to see the title bar. Very useful when a program decides it wants to be so big you can't grab the title bar.

Maybe using Xinerama would allow you to do something like this? I don't know if you can tell it to use a virtual desktop instead of a physical second display, but I'm pretty sure it allows a window to be split between two displays.

The Alt-click-drag technique works in fluxbox. I forgot that one. I think I used to use that in my older gnome version or a similar hotkey combination. I may still try setting up a larger virtual desktop, but my immediate problem is solved.

Thanks,
Michael

if i understand what you're saying, you can do that in xfce4. you don't even have to switch workspaces, just drag the window, and when it gets to the edge it'll keep going into the next workspace.

Actually, that is doable with most of the window managers that I've played with, but that's not exactly what I want. I want to be able to drag a window half way through the workspace and see part of it on each workspace. It really is more like having an expanded virtual desktop.

Thanks,
Michael

Just making sure what we are talking about. You want to be able to drag a window part way off screen, say to the right for convenience. Then when you click on the pager for the desktop to the right of the current one you want to see the other part of the application window?

By the window manager specification (x.org) what you are talking about is "large desktops" which Metacity does not support. Metacity only supports "virtual desktops". I went through the compliance documents on x.org and only FVWM (and probably Enlightenment since it was based on FVWM) seems to support it it this time. It is not a feature that most people use I guess. I did not test this with the different window managers so I could be misreading the compliance docs and/or the spec. I know it works in FVWM though.

Of course if you have 2 monitors you could use xinerama and have part of the window on each monitor.