NAME¶

disper - on-the-fly display switcher

SYNOPSIS¶

disper [options] (-l|-s|-c|-e|-p|-i)

DESCRIPTION¶

Disper re-routes your screen output to one or more connected displays. For example when giving a presentation, all one wants is that the beamer, which has just been connected, is able to show whatever you prepared.

There is the option to either clone all detected displays, or extend the desktop to them. Resolutions are automatically detected by default. For cloning, the highest resolution supported by all displays devices is chosen; for extending every display device gets its preferred or highest supported resolution. For special setups requiring more detailed control, one can still use the vendor-supplied display configuration utilities.

OPTIONS¶

--version

show program's version number and exit

-h, --help

show this help message and exit

-v, --verbose

show what's happening

-q, --quiet

be quiet and only show errors

-r RESOLUTION, --resolution=RESOLUTION

set resolution, e.g. "800x600", or "auto" to detect the display's preferred resolution, "max" to use the maximum resolution advertised, or "off" to disable the display entirely. For extend it is possible to enter a single resolution for all displays or a commaseparated list of resolutions (one for each display). Beware that many displays advertise resolutions they can not fully show, so "max" is not advised.

-d DISPLAYS, --displays=DISPLAYS

comma-separated list of displays to operate on, or "auto" to detect; the first is the primary display.

-t DIRECTION, --direction=DIRECTION

where to extend displays: "left", "right", "top", or "bottom"

--scaling=SCALING

flat-panel scaling mode: "default", "native", "scaled", "centered", or "aspect-scaled"

--plugins=PLUGINS

comma-separated list of plugins to enable. Special names: "user" for all user plugins in ~/.config/disper/hooks; "all" for all plugins found; "none" for no plugins.

--cycle-stages=CYCLE_STAGES

colon-separated list command-line arguments to cycle through; "-S:-c:-s" by default

ACTIONS¶

Select exactly one of the following actions

-l, --list

list the attached displays

-s, --single

only enable the primary display

-S, --secondary

only enable the secondary display

-c, --clone

clone displays

-e, --extend

extend displays

-p, --export

export current settings to standard output

-i, --import

import current settings from standard input

-C, --cycle

cycle through the list of cycle stages

FILES¶

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/disper/config or ~/.config/disper/config or ~/.disper/config

# enable all plugins in ~/.config/disper/hooks
--plugins=user
# cycle over clone and extend
--cycle-stages='-c : -e'

CYCLE¶

There is a possibility to cycle between different setups with a single disper invocation using the option --cycle. The options to cycle through are specified by the option --cycle-stages, which consists of a colon-separated list of disper options. To alternate, for example, between clone and extend, one could use

disper --cycle-stages='-e : -c' --cycle

PLUGINS¶

It is possible to execute user-supplied hooks on display switch, for example to display a notification or change the wallpaper. Which ones are enabled is specified by the --plugins option. System hooks are located in /usr/share/disper/hooks/ while user hooks should be placed in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/disper/hooks (or ~/.config/disper/hooks/ or ~/.disper/hooks/).

Each hook is an executable file (which includes scripts). The following environment variables are available when invoked:

DISPER_VERSION

Version of disper (0.3.1).

DISPER_LOG_LEVEL

Log level: 0 (quiet), 1 (normal) or 2 (verbose).

DISPER_STAGE

Execution stage: prepare or switch. Most plugins will only need to act on the switch stage, which is just after the display switch has happened. Please make sure to execute an action only on switch for future compatibility. (There are ideas for import and export as well.)

DISPER_DISPLAYS

Space-separated list of displays that have output. These names may be slightly different from what disper uses internally because they have to be valid environment variable names. (e.g. DFP_0 CRT_0)

DISPER_LAYOUT

One of: clone, top, right, bottom or left.

DISPER_BB_RESOLUTION

Size of full bounding box (e.g. 1024x768).

For each of DISPER_DISPLAYS the resolution of the corresponding display is supplied as well. If only DFP-0 would be attached, DISPER_DISPLAYS would contain just DFP_0 and the following variables would be set as well:

DISPER_RESOLUTION_DFP_0

Resolution of display DFP-0 (e.g. 1024x768).

If you want to write your own hook you can also look at the ones supplied with disper in /usr/share/disper/hooks/.

AUTHOR¶

Written by Willem van Engen.

SEE ALSO¶

xrandr(1), nvidia-settings(1)