How 2 enable left/right scrolling of virtual desktops when mouse touches screen edge?
 

I spent the last few days playing with E17 on Ubuntu. It threw the occasional error, that was usually recoverable, but the last straw was this afternoon when I couldn't open an editor to take notes while on the phone without the desktop crashing, so I am back to lxde.

Be that as it may, I will miss being able to scroll laterally between virtual desktops when my mouse reached the left or right edge of the screen. I was wondering if this function was totally dependent on window and desktop managers, or could I enable it if I knew the configuration setting? I was thinking there might be an app to enable left right scrolling even if it isn't built into the desktop. Even knowing the proper term for this function would aid my search. Thanks

I looked at this when you first posted it. I don't have the answer, but I have some thoughts after letting it simmer for a while.

I use Fluxbox. On both Slackware and Debian, I can switch desktops by positioning the mouse at any edge of the screen (top, right, left, bottom) and rotating the mouse wheel (center button). I spent some time at the Fluxbox wiki today and could not find a reference to turning this feature on or off in the documentation on the "startup" or "init" files.

I can also click and hold the title bar of a window and drag it to the next workspace and switch to that workspace in one motion.

I know I cannot do this in MATE on Mint. Tomorrow I will try to test some other desktops in Slackware (since it comes with six installed) and report back.

My initial guess is that this feature is related to the DE/window manager, rather than the underlying OS.

Thanks FrankBell. I now know the function in the Window Manger that controls moving between virtual desktops is called the pager (which I am sure you already knew) but I haven't found much on adding features not enabled by the WM.

frankbell, Thanks for the scroll wheel tip. When I played with the lxde (via Lubuntu) "Desktop Pager" settings (aka Openbox Configuration Manager) the other day, I set right and left Margins to a few pixels in hopes putting my mose there would left me scroll to another Virtual Desktop. No such luck, but I can place the mouse there and use the scroll wheel. Thanks

I tested in the other WMs/DEs that come with Slackware and XFCE has the drag-to-the-other desktop feature when you drag left and right, and snap-to half-screen when you drag up or down to the edges of the screen. Other than Flux, which I mentioned above, none of the others (TWM, Blackbox, WindowMaker, KDE) have any such feature. Consequently, I think such features are definitely related to the desktop software.

I installed Enlightenment on my Mint machine today; I'm not sure it's the most recent (it's v. 0.16.999.55225--whew!). I was able to drag a window across desktops and have focus follow the window. If I was on Desktop 1, I could drag right to 2, 3, and 4. On 4, I could drag left to 3, 2, 1. If I was on 2 or 3, I could drag either way. Occasionally the drag did not work, but most of the time it did.

The setting is controlled from Settings-->Settings Panel-->Screen-->Virtual Desktops-->Desktop Flip.

Hope this helps.

I could not find a snap-to feature. Just between you and me, that's fine with me. Windows 7 has that "feature" and I find it most irritating. I'm trying to arrange the windows on the screen and suddenly one of them decides it's more important than any others. What hubris!

I learned more about this:

If you right-click on a window's title bar in E17 and select "Window" from the drop-down, then select "Maximize," you will be presented with a number of options, including choices such as "half-maximize right" and half-maximize left, and so on.

I think I didn't find it before because the version in the Mint repos, though billed as "E17," might not have been the most recent. The version from SlackE17 is more up-to-date.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/slac...urce=directory