Multi-monitor: How can I make sure full screen apps (games) open on the correct monitor?

[winteriscariot]

I have a 3 display setup, and right now it's very unpredictable where full screen games are going to open. This includes using the -f flag in gamescope. Right now my best work around for games opening consistently on the correct display is to use gamescope, but even that has its own issues and quirks.

Is there any option or trick I can do to make sure full screen windows open on the right display? My side panels are all rotated differently so a game in a vertical panel won't seem to be able to be moved to a different screen.

Thanks!

[tokyo4j]

I tried gamescope -f and it opens in the output where the cursor resides. Does it behave differently in your environment?

[winteriscariot]

This is inconsistent. Take the follow example:

Main monitor, no windows. Side panel has maximized firefox.

If I right click on the Steam icon in the systray, then select a game to play, once the "launching" dialog disappears focus returns to the previously focused window, in this case Firefox on my side panel. Since the compositor focus is now in the side panel, the game will launch on that monitor instead of what I consider my "primary" (i know wlroots has no concept of primary displays)

I could maybe work around this by opening a window on my main panel and focusing that before launching the game, but I admit I have not rigorously tested this. It'd be preferable if labwc could be told which monitor to open all full screen apps on, all the time.

[johanmalm]

Would a window-rule with either of these work?

• <action name="AutoPlace" policy="cursor"/>
• <action name="MoveToOutput" output="HDMI-A-1"/>

https://labwc.github.io/labwc-actions.5.html#entry_action_name=autoplace_policy=value
https://labwc.github.io/labwc-actions.5.html#entry_action_name=movetooutput_output=hdmi-a-1_direction=value_wrap=no

[winteriscariot]

Would this work for full screen games? The docs linked for MoveToOutput state: "Moves active window to other output, unless the window state is fullscreen."

i'm just trying to make full screen windows (games, in this case) reliably open on the same monitor every time and that just doesn't seem to occur. additionally, games seem to get random resolutions that don't correspond to anything in reality (got a really weird 4,000 pixel wide resolution in Elden Ring)

[winteriscariot]

I will try using the AutoPlace cursor rule, I thought I had that set in my rc.xml but it appears I do not.

[tokyo4j]

@winteriscariot
I think you're right. We currently don't allow MoveToOutput action for fullscreen window.

If the application opens in windowed mode first and make it fullscreen later, MoveToOutput works. But that causes flickering and many applications would not do that.

We may implement something like <windowRule event="onCreate"> in the future, by which users can set the position of window before the window is shown. More discussion about this feature will be done in #1718.

[gzcao]

@tokyo4j Before onCreate is implemented, what alternatives are there to ensure a fullscreen window opens on a particular output? Is there a way to move the cursor to a particular output to take advantage of the autoplace cursor policy for the new window?