Is it possible to have two different workspaces on two screens?

After years of refusing to hang a monitor on one of my laptops, for esthetical reasons, yes I know it’s stupid, I finally caved in this week. (The internet “suddenly” began using “smaller” fonts, making it hard to read for me. :lying_face: :nerd_face: :upside_down_face:)

Is it possible to have my monitor display, for example, workspace A with Libre Office open on it and the laptop screen workspace B with Thunderbird open on it?

So if I understand you correctly, you want to switch the plasma workspaces on the different monitors independently, right? I.e. similarly the way you have individual workspaces per monitor when using i3.

This is unfortunately not possible with the default KDE/ KWin. Out of the box, workspaces are shared across all monitors. You could switch to a different window manager which supports this feature, but that might be rather difficult depending on the window manager (i3 should be easy, but you probably don’t want a tiling wm; enlightenment apparently is quite tricky to set up).
You can find a more in depth discussion here.

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Indeed, thanks for the explanation. It isn’t a major must-have feature for me at the moment. I was just wondering in case I overlooked something in the settings.

Happened here to, did they wash the fonts in to hot water!?! :grin:
If you use Firefox, try the extension “Fixed Zoom”. You can set different zooms for every page.

Activities. How about this for a workaround:
Setup two activities.
Make a keyboard shortcut to both.

Make up your mind about which activity is the most important.

Say you always want to be able to see Thunderbird.
Right click on the TB icon in the taskbar → Show in Activities → and choose All
and if you have multi Virtual Desktops
also mark in Move to Desktop → All Desktops.
Drag TB to the monitor you want it on.

Now you can always see TB, even if you change to another VD.

Then use the shortcut to go to the other activity and start Libre Office and drag it to the other Monitor.

Use the shortcut to go back to TB (or click another icon on the taskbar, that are on that activity) and it now change the activity to that of TB

Click on the LO icon in the taskbar, it now change the activity to that of LO with TB on the other monitor.

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:rofl: :rofl:

Thank you, I will try your suggestion.

Use i3 in kde :sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

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Is it like https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=289&t=168093 ?

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Or use LXQt with Openbox :wink:.
I am guessing you can also use Openbox to set the display for a workspace right?

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not really unless you use sort of script :slight_smile: or workaround :slight_smile:

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So LXQt with i3??

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or with kde :slight_smile:

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I have installed i3 on one of my older laptops. When I’m more used to it, I think I will migrate my two daily drivers (IdeaPad and ThinkPad) to it, I do see the benefit of having two separate virtual workspaces on both screens at once.

Okay, for anyone who is looking for a solution without installing a WM, because it was staring at me in front of my face.

It is the option to extend the screen to the right or left and it will give you the option to view one app on your laptop screen and other apps on the external screen, just by dragging them to the preferred screen.

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That’s how I’ve done it always.

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It is the first time for me connecting an external monitor with my laptop, so I had no idea that set up was the one I was looking for.

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I connect my Laptop to an external monitor both at work and at home, so I’ve always felt it was natural.

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I’m only used to connecting beamers to my laptops, so mirrored screen was the only mode I used until recently.

I have my laptop hooked up to a bigger screen too, I tend to use the laptop screen for notes/folders, launching apps & the time

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At home I’ve my laptop connected to a 50" 4K TV (i.e. my 2nd monitor)
:rofl: :blush:

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It is the option to extend the screen to the right or left and it will give you the option to view one app on your laptop screen and other apps on the external screen, just by dragging them to the preferred screen.

This is what I was going to recommend but you figured it out first. I do it all the time.

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