Multiple Monitor support

[hhoeflin]

Hi,

I have been using NoMachine for a while and I think it is an awesome product. There is only one part that I feel it could support better – and that is multiple monitors. I of course know that a single NoMachine window can be spread across several monitors. This solution works well, if the several monitors together form a rectangular area.

My setup is a bit special. I usually have a portrait monitor for reading documents, a landscape high-res monitor for programming and the laptop monitor (smaller res) for email. So here my question. Is there a solution that can capture this? I was hoping for a setting where NoMachine creates 3 windows instead of one, where each window corresponds to a “monitor” on the server (and bonus points if NoMachine detects how the windows are arranged on my machine and sets up the “monitors” on the remote machine accordingly).

 

Thanks!

[Tor]

Hi.
If those multiple monitors are on the server, you’ll find useful this Feature Request that will be included in the next release:

Giving the possibility to switch between monitors of the remote server
https://www.nomachine.com/FR11K02797

This may not be exactly what you need because if you have multiple monitors on the client you may have enough space to see all remote monitors in the same time. Once we’ll release this feature and collect feedbacks, we’ll evaluate how we can improve usability for this use case.

[hhoeflin]

Hi,

thanks – yes it is somewhat related but as you mention does not really address my setting.

In particular, the whole “remote monitors” is a red herring for me, as I am running my session on the server without any connection to a physical monitor on the server. Essentially, my use case is an extension of the resizing feature NoMachine has already built in. Resizing the client display (and choosing the resize remote option) is essentially equivalent to connect a “monitor” with a particular resolution to my remote computer. Now – all I want is to connect a second “monitor” to my remote session (where this monitor of course only exists virtually) using a second window on the client.

As such – my feature request is actually completely orthogonal to the feature suggested in your release:

1. You are trying to solve the issue on how to display several monitors when a *second* user connects to a session (in your case, the first user is the user in front of the physical display)

2. I however would like to “virtualize” the physical monitor setting as the primary user. In my case, each window I open to a session is supposed to count as an equivalent to a “physical” monitor being connected to the session (under the assumption that there are *no* actual physical monitors connected, i.e. a session running on a server). Your feature in the next release would then apply if a *second* user connects to the session where a *primary* user is using several virtual monitors at the same time.

I hope I am clear – happy to talk more if I am hard to understand … sorry.

In the end, what I am saying is. I appreciate that you are working on features surrounding multiple monitors. However, I would urge you not to take feedback on the feature that you have mentioned above into account when you are evaluating if you can support the feature I have suggested. The two things do not have a direct connection and are really working on related but complimentary rather than correlated issues.

 

Thanks!

[Tor]

Hi.
The remote monitor selection is not really related to the number of users connected to the desktop, but it is not clearly related to what you’re asking.
If I understand correctly, you would like to virtualize the client’s display so that the server detects the same display layout you’ve on the client. It’s an interesting feature and it can be useful in many contexts, but at the moment I could not say if it can be done on all systems.
We’ve opened an internal Feature Request under investigation, thank you for your suggestion!

[hhoeflin]

Hi,

sorry for my late reply, just only saw the post now. Well, what you say is close to what I mean. Let me try again.

– Multiple windows on the client are opened, each connected to the same remote session

– Each window on the client counts as one “virtual monitor” on the server

– The relative location of the virtual monitors on the server is dynamically changed to reflect the relative location of the windows on the client.

As an example. The client has 2 monitors on the clients computer. He opens 2 windows to the remote session, positioning the windows so that one is on top of the other. On the remote machine, the system emulates 2 monitors being connected to the remote machine, one being on top of the other. If the windows on the client side are moved (e.g. next to each other and full screen), the display resolution on the remote computer changes (as it does dynamically already upon window resize) and the relative position of the monitors changes as well.

Then you could have a horizontal and a vertical monitor on the client. And if you full-screen 2 windows in them, the remote machine would reflect automatically exactly the same setup.

So, what I envisioned is a little more general than what I understood from your email. It also only depends on the ability of NoMachine to detect the relative position of windows on the client with respect to each other

[Cris70]

Hi Tor, I am interested in this feature too.

Not exactly what hhoeflin is asking, but what you envisioned in your last post.

My use case is this one: I am connecting to a remote vmware virtual machine running Linux (OpenSUSE).

My client has two monitors. I can extend NoMachine’s window to cover the two monitors, but that is not exactly the same as working with two monitors.. e.g. many windows tend to open in the center of the view area, which – in this case – means they are split between the two monitors.

The remote VM can be configured (and is already configured) so that its virtual graphics card supports more than one monitor, but there is AFAIK no way to tell it to simulate more than one monitor.

If NoMachine could add this feature, it would be really awesome.

 

Thank you!

Cris

 

[Tor]

Hi Cris.
The behaviour you described seems to be related to a virtual desktop, so you create a new desktop on Linux instead if connecting to the running physical desktop, or maybe it’s an headless server.
In such a case, this Feature Request will do what you’re asking:

Making it possible to treat multi-monitors on the client as separate monitors in virtual desktop sessions
https://www.nomachine.com/FR12K02799

Can you confirm please?

[markus31]

Hi Tor,
I am also interested in this feature (https://www.nomachine.com/FR12K02799), because without this feature NoMachine is not really useful for a multi-monitor setup.

I will give NoMachine definitely a try with this feature at our company.Thanks!

Markus

[Britgirl]

It appears to be a very requested feature, so we’ll do our best 😉

[drichard]

FR12K02799 is a big help and very close to solving our needs.  In our use case, the NX client runs over two monitors…yet still has a window manager and therefore does not consume the entire screen.  It’s consuming about 95% of the screen, and this allows the users to have a bit of exposure to a task panel and to be able to click into other applications.

Many dialogs open right in the gap of the monitors and when you log in the account/password is typed partially on both monitors.

We’d love for NX to see this as two monitors and center things assuming the mid point is the gap between the monitors.  For instance, two monitors at 1440×900 would be 2880×900.  NX client would then be about 2800×850.  We’d like it to treat this as two monitors each at 1400×850 in terms of dialogs and maximize buttons.  It would be ok for this to be command line flags if it could not be automated.

[Cris70]

Tor, yes that’s exactly what I’d like to be able to do.

So go on with FR12K02799, please, it is very desired! 😉

Thank you

Cris

 

[markus31]

Hi Tor, do you know when this feature (https://www.nomachine.com/FR12K02799) will be released?

Thank you

Markus

[Tor]

Hi markus! The feature FR12K02799 is not yet scheduled for implementation, so I can’t give you a release timeframe, but we’ll do our best to start it as soon as possible.

[Britgirl]

Users can sign up to the ‘notify me’ in order to know when it has been implemented. I will now close this topic.

[Author]

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