Issue 12719

Indeed, sounds like a resonable RFE. I will look into it in more
detail on our way to OO.o 2.0 / SO "Q". However, I don't agree with
the priority. "3" means "won't ship without it", and I would not like
to make shipment dependant on this. So I set it to "4". 

When you are on the way to implementing this, please also consider a 
thing I am looking for:

The "palettes" like the "stylist" (in fact every window that is 
floating and non-modal) should be moveable outside the applications 
window. Allowing this would enable me to put those on my second screen 
when working on a text/drawing/whatever on my main screen.

All the best and thank you for your work!!
Philipp

warper: that has nothing to do with this issue. But please have a look
at the beta, the feature you wish is already in: all floaters are
system windows now (that is you can drag them whereever you want), if
you find one that is not that is probably a bug.

LHO->CJ: Please take over.

Reassinged to BEttina.

Hello Christian, the support of dual monitors especially in Impress is
very useful and makes sense e.g. when the presenter likes to see his
notes, when parallely the presentation is shown to the audience.
Please give approval for this evaluated OO.o 2.0 flagged issue. 
If you confirm with the target OO.o 2.0, then please keep it on your
owner (or the owner of the concerning developer) for implementation.
In case you want this issue for 'OOo Later', then please reset the
target milestone. If you decline the issue finally, please set the
resolution to 'Wontfix' (but do not close). In case of 'OOo Later' or
'Wontfix' please reset it on Bettina's owner. Thank you. 

Christian, please consider, that issue (duplicate to this one) 13440
has 4 votes. 

Hello Bettina, I would also love to have such feature in impress, but
it needs work in vcl and ui work in impress and that may be not
possible in the OOo 2.0 timeframe. Also for feature requests like
this, I would love to see a simple spec first from user expirience how
we will support multi monitore enviroments. Without this, I can not
make an estimate on the time needed to implement this feature.

*** Issue 13440 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

Hello Christian, at pre-approving a certain feature no spec has to be
written, that takes place after the final approval (apartt from that
you are always welcome for writing specifications). 
We had come to he conclusion, that this feature is not considered for
the Q, as it is too complex for implementation as a non-defined
keyfeature for Q. It is considered for 'Office later'.

Simply having the ability to select a presentation to display on a second 
monitor at the resolution of the second monitor would do it for me, and I'm 
sure many other users, at this time. If possible then, maybe that simplest 
feature could make it to the next release. (I'm quite new at OOo, or I'd take 
it on!)

There's nothing wrong with baby-steps, especially when OOffice can replace MS 
in many churches where budgets are always tight! (Although, I guess I shouldn't 
limit it to churches.)

I'll contact the people at Fowler Inc, the creators of SongShow Plus (worship 
presentation software), and maybe they'd join the OOo Impress development team, 
as it could enable them to sell more of their product.

On my Xinerama display, OO dialogs pop up in all sorts of inappropriate places,
although the behavior seems to be different with 1.1.1 and 1.1.2rc3. 
Xinerama-aware applications open dialogs (e.g., save file) on the same screen as
the parent window.  OO 1.1.1 seems to always open dialogs on the screen where OO
was started, while OO 1.1.2 opens dialogs where they were last (I think this is
right).  Neither behavior is desireable, as I frequently move windows back and
forth between displays.

The result is you choose 'open file' and think nothing has happened, until you
look at the other screen and realize the window opened over there.

I know there are some window manager matching hacks that could temporarily
address this issue, but it is more than a minor annoyance.  I would suggest this
particular behavior verges on a "bug" rather than a "feature request."

This is high on my wishlist, as a person who builds slideshows for church
worship services, and also shows slideshows.  I used Powerpoint's dual monitor
capability a couple of weeks ago, and found that, since we frequently jump
around, it was useful to be able to view my slide index while showing the
presentation.  It was also useful to be able to search for a slide without the
audience being able to see what I was doing.  I think we really need this,
especially if we want to compete with Powerpoint - which, by the way, when you
return to the presentation, starts back at the beginning, unlike OpenOffice.org,
which in it's present form, starts at your current slide.

At this point, here are my choices:  If I don't care about being able to jump
around without the audience seeing me jump around, I can use OO.o.  If I don't
want the audience to see what I'm doing, but want them to see a black screen
while I search for, and cue up a slide, I must use Powerpoint.  Frankly, I don't
like those choices.

One further note:  Somembody already mentioned Powerpoint's limited capability,
here, in that while you are looking at the slide sorter, as you change slides in
the presentation, your current (highlited) slide in the slide sorter doesn't
change.  Let's make sure that works in OO.o, please!

So....  When will I be able to do this with OO.o?

I too am involved in chruch multimedia and recently switched from MS Office to
OOo. Other than the lack of dual monitor support, I am thrilled with Impress.
Please consider making this as high a priority as possible. It could be a
show-stopper for some folks. Right now we are making due with workarounds but
for the long term we need support for dual monitors. 

Linux FC2 is my main OS but I've used Impress on Windows 2000 too. There appears
to be different behaviours between them on this issue. Linux appears to allow
the functionality discussed in this bug across Gnome workspaces. Unfortunately I
don't have a multi-monitor Linux machine here to test at this moment. 

How to do it under Linux (in a workspace):

1. Load an Impress presentation and switch the Impress layout to 'Slides View',
so you can see multiple slides at a time.
2. Start the slideshow (F9)
3. Move the fullscreen slideshow to Workspace 2 (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Right Arrow)
4. Go back to the Slides View on Workspace 1 (Ctrl+Alt+Left Arrow)
5. Click on slides to change them on Workspace 2

Can anyone test this under Linux with multi-monitors? I'm not sure if this
observation translates into anything meaningful.

I would really appreciate the multi-monitor support under Windows, though, for
other end-users. I can get a few to switch with this feature! Please reconsider
adding the functionality to OOo 2.0.

For some cross-platform code that handles multiple displays, it may be
instructive to look at wxWidgets code:

For Win32:
http://cvs.wxwidgets.org/viewcvs.cgi/wxWidgets/src/msw/display.cpp?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup
For Unix/X11:
http://cvs.wxwidgets.org/viewcvs.cgi/wxWidgets/src/unix/displayx11.cpp?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup

The only relevant code I could find using lxr and the MSDN docs is in
gsl/vcl/win/source/window/salframe.cxx, line 297:
   GetMonitorInfo(hMonitor, &mi);
This seems to be used to construct the frame on the correct monitor.
However as mentioned before this doesn't really expose an API that could be used
from outside.
But looking at the wxWidgets code it shouldn't be too complicated.

I wonder if one of the developers could just give a pointer as to where code for
this could be implemented. I don't know my way around the sd module (which I
presume is the right place) too well. Even a description of where the code is
that implements the presentation window for displaying a slideshow would be great.

PS I see Thorsten Behrens (thb) is described on  as a "vcl/impress/toolkit
visionary"; should I cc him on this bug?

I wonder if one of the developers could just give a pointer as to where code for
this could be implemented. I don't know my way around the sd module (which I
presume is the right place) too well. Even a description of where the code is
that implements the presentation window for displaying a slideshow would be great.

PS I see Thorsten Behrens (thb) is described on
http://ooo.ximian.com/name-account.html as a "vcl/impress/toolkit visionary";
should I cc him on this bug?

At least Thorsten Behrens would be the right person to talk to if you want to
develop in draw/impress

Some comments from thb (in an email):

In sd, have a look at sd/source/ui/inc/ShowWindow.hxx (and the implementation in
ui/view/showwin.cxx).

At the moment, though, it might not be advisable to touch that code, since
we're currently rewriting close to everything of the slideshow. This work
takes place in the CWS presentationengine01 (have a look at EIS:
http://eis.services.openoffice.org/EIS2/servlet/GuestLogon). If you want
to peek at the code, update your sources to branch tag
cws_src680_presentationengine01.

Generally speaking, I'd suggest adding multihead support to VCL first, and
letting the applications use that through a portable interface. 

I'm asking about giving a presentation with one monitor showing the presentation
and the other showing the notes of something. That's sounds really really useful.

Hi.

I tried to hack this up, a while ago, by re-positioning the window, myself
(through a third-party tool). The full screen "window" actually resets itself
every second (or so).

As it stands, I my secondary display smaller than my primary, with offset tops,
so I can drag the presentation window (non full-screen) onto the secondary..
complicated, I know.

I think it goes without saying that I'd benefit from a fix, here.

+2

S

I have traced through several threads no this basic issue, and I don't see this
particular point mentioned:

One of the big enabler of MS Powerpoint on multiple displays is the ability to
edit the presentation while it is being shown, including the current slide.  I
can think of several applications where it would be nice to be able to change
the slide show on the fly.  1) Church worship services where "creative" worship
leaders "re-write" the words of the songs.  [Oops, make that: The slides had
mistakes.]  2) Live recordings of a "notes" in a presentation format.

*** Issue 30760 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

I will echo the requests of others -- I too use PowerPoint regularly in church
services.  The staff at church won't take chances, so I can't say for sure that
they would ever switch to OpenOffice.  But I *know* they wouldn't switch without
a multiple monitors feature.  It may not be the top priority for developers, but
I think there are a lot of folks out there who would be a lot more likely to use
OOo Impress if the support was there.

Hello, I posted Issue 30760 which is now marked as a duplicate of this issue. 
We are using OO on our sunday-service. Because of the lack supporting 2 
screens we have to save Impress as *.ppt and use a MS-Powerpoint-Viewer. It 
works, but there are a lot of additional clicks necessary. We just thougt 
about changing this construction, but I'm trying to hold it until OO offers 
this feature. So: keep on going... 

I have tried, with 1.1.4 & 1.9.80 to do this using some software deseigned to
work with dual monitors, and it doesn't work. So, a feature would be nice in OOo.

However, this does seem to work in Writer and Calc, so I don't know if framework
is the best Component. I would change the component, but then all the votes get
lost, so I would like some direction.

Well, I'd certainly vote for this, except I've uded all my framework votes, and
I think  this is an impress issue where I have votes spare...

Please take into consideration also creating the "Presenter View" Powerpoint
has. It is a real help when having a presentation. This thing is the only one,
that is holding me back from fully adopting OpenOffice, while I use this feature
almost all the time.

Changed the summary to make more searches find this issue.

Added myself to cc list

I've started looking at this again for 2.x after the integration of
presentationengine01.
I thought I would start from the other end this time and have added an item to
the Slide Show Settings dialog to select a display number. My first time working
on dialog code so I'm sure this could be inmproved ; I'll attach a patch.
thb, do you have any further help on where to add the display code now that
presentationengine01 has been integrated?

@davidfraser: seeing no patch, yet :-)
Regarding your question, you'd prolly have to start with
sd/source/ui/slideshow/slideshowimpl.cxx, method SlideShowImpl::startShow().
There, you get passed a PresentationSettings pointer, which would contain your
UI-controllable display choice. Then, grep for "new ShowWindow" in this very
file (around line 448 in my version). You'd somehow pass the chosen display down
that window (which is derived from sd::Window, which in turn is a plain VCL
window). In the end, some changes in VCL are certainly necessary, for the
details, I'd pass the buck on to pl.

@davidfraser: seeing no patch, yet :-)
Regarding your question, you'd prolly have to start with
sd/source/ui/slideshow/slideshowimpl.cxx, method SlideShowImpl::startShow().
There, you get passed a PresentationSettings pointer, which would contain your
UI-controllable display choice. Then, grep for "new ShowWindow" in this very
file (around line 448 in my version). You'd somehow pass the chosen display down
that window (which is derived from sd::Window, which in turn is a plain VCL
window). In the end, some changes in VCL are certainly necessary, for the
details, I'd pass the buck on to pl.

Created attachment 27061 [details]
intial patch to add display number option to slideshow settings dialog

thb: wow, that was fast :-) I'll have a look
the attachment impress-display-option.patch adds a number chooser to the Slide
Show Settings that lets you select a display number (currently limited to 1 or 2
with no intelligence as to what is actually possible).
I disabled reading it from the options as that crashes the system (not sure how
to add it as a new attribute properly).
Screenshot coming.

Created attachment 27062 [details]
screen shot of slide show settings with new display number option

Added CL to the CC list.

Please no implementation before we have a ui spec.

I like this to have a proper user interface with a bit more feature's than just
selecting which device to use for the slideshow (something like slideshow on n
screens, stretched over n screens, slideshow on one screen and notes on other,
e.t.c.)

For this we need a component in vcl to enumerate available devices, we need a
user interface that hooks into impress and some code to make this work in
sd/source/ui/slideshow and maybe in the slideshow project.

So please ho hacking until we have a spec to see what requirements we have for
the code.

I like to take over this issue. Timeframe should be next feature release

See http://specs.openoffice.org/ here for what's to be done for a spec.

I'm not proposing that the existing UI should be used but I was trying to get
this done and I needed something to proceed with... But very glad you are
wanting to work on it! 
In the mean time I've started a wiki page to put together a specification here:
http://www.ooowiki.de/ImpressMultiDisplaySpec

Hopefully those that aren't programmers could help with writing the spec
following the link that thb gave.
The options idea seems good so that should of course be included in the spec.

Note: I have created a Specification template in the wiki based on the official
one, so just follow the link - its just a case of filling in the sections. A
fair amount of this could be done by copying text from this issue. If you
haven't used a wiki before, its an easy way to edit stuff over the web - just
give it a go!
If you want to see this bug fixed, this is a nice way to help, the more
technical details can be filled in later by those who know how...

*** Issue 51257 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

Please go to
http://www.ooowiki.de/ImpressMultiDisplaySpecification?action=show
and contribute! The earlier we get this Spec done, the earlier the
implementation can begin...

Greetings
    Mathis from Hannover, Germany

I've posted some notes on a temporary workaround for Linux users wanting to use
a dual-screen Impress setup at
http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?p=86445#86445 ... not elegant but
it works.

I thought I would share a few ideas for a control panel user interface on the
presenter’s side of a dual screen setup.  I believe the main editing program
window in itself would work well as a control panel during a slide show, but
operating in a different mode.  You already have thumb views of the slides on
the right side which could be used as cues for the next and previous slides. 
The current slide could be shown in the middle where slides are usually edited.
 You would also probably want to make available a separate notes or outline area
as well while a slide show is running. All of these areas and possibly others
could be customizable to be closed, opened, resized, or repositioned.  These
areas would all be kept synchronized relative to the current slide being shown.
You could also have a special slide show toolbar appear with controls for
starting, ending, next, previous, blacking-out the screen, and jumping to a
slide number, etc. As for editing slides during a slide show, I would recommend
having a special “Edit” button on the slide show toolbar that you would have to
click-on in order to suspend the show leaving the current slide up so that you
can edit.   This would transfer the keyboard input from going to slide show
commands like “N” for next and “B” for black-out to going towards editing text
on a slide.  You could also have a “Resume” button on the toolbar that flashes
or blinks while you are in the editing mode so that you know to click on the
“Resume” button when you are finished and ready to refresh the current slide and
continue the slide show.  (Also making the black-out button flash when in use
would be a good idea, too.) I don’t suggest having real-time editing like in
PowerPoint 2000 since it think it is distracting to the audience.  When making
changes to a slide that is currently being shown to the audience, they see each
character pop-up on the projector screen as you type in your changes in the
editing screen.  I would much rather just suspend the slide show, make the
changes on the editing screen, and then have the finished modifications be shown
all at once when the slide is refreshed once the slide show is resumed.  This
would be much cleaner and less distracting (plus probably easier to program that
way).  Also, when you are running the slide show most of the menu bar and
toolbars could be dimmed and inactive (except maybe the file menu to save
changes made after editing or to exit the program). On another note, it would be
nice to be able to use the mouse to click on links, and start video and sound
clips, etc. in a slide from the presenter’s monitor and not just the slide show
monitor.  This would be less distracting to the audience by not having to see
the mouse cursor at all.  Instead of moving the mouse cursor to the slide show
monitor to click on a link on the current slide, you could just click on the
same link that is on the presenter’s monitor from the main area showing the
current slide.  It would be important to make the presenter have to click on the
“Edit” button on the slide show toolbar to edit anything while a slide show is
running.  This is so that if you click on a link in the current slide on the
presenter’s monitor it will know you want to open the link while the slide show
is running and not edit it.  During a running slide show all of the other areas
would also control the slide show unless you switch to edit mode and suspend the
slide show.  If you click on a slide in the cue area it will jump to that slide
in the slide show.  Also, you could click on an area in your notes or outline to
go to the slide that those notes refer to.  If you would want to edit those
notes during a slide show you would have to click on the “Edit” button and then
“Resume” when you are finished. These are just some ideas I had for a control
panel user interface for the presenter while a slide show is running in a
dual-monitor setup.

I would find this extremely useful, as well.  I speak at conferences and having
a presenter view on the laptop screen, with the same type of help that Keynote
gives (http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/presenter.html) would be great.  I
seriously think about buying an Apple, just for that functionality, because I
know it would make a dramatic improvement on my presentations.

I edited the user experience document at 

http://www.ooowiki.de/ImpressMultiDisplaySpec

to add more information on possible additions to the basic functionality - one
that I'd like to see is a per-slide timer that adapts to help keep a
presentation under a specific time limit, as most professional meetings have a
10 or 20 minute limit. Some slides will take longer than others, and an
adaptable timer would help adjust for that.

To get an idea of the user experience, looking at Apple and Microsoft's
Presenter Views is a useful exercise; neither is perfect, but Impress would be
substantially farther along if it implemented either. =)

STATUS UPDATE:

I'm getting a number of private emails from people asking if my patch actually
implements displaying on a second monitor. IT DOES NOT. It was only a first stab
at adding options to the slideshow settings dialog, so it really can't help you
for the mean time.

The specification is nearing completion at
http://www.ooowiki.de/ImpressMultiDisplaySpecification so anyone is welcome to
help out with that. Once the specification is complete it will need to be
implemented in code. Thanks to all who have been helping out with this...

In the mean time, there's not much to be done unless you can code and produce
patches based on the specification. This won't go into OOo 2.0 but hopefully we
can get it soon afterwards, depending on developer's schedules.

STATUS UPDATE:

I'm getting a number of private emails from people asking if my patch actually
implements displaying on a second monitor. IT DOES NOT. It was only a first stab
at adding options to the slideshow settings dialog, so it really can't help you
for the mean time.

Please don't mail people privately about this bug, rather if you have any
contributions add them to this issue, or else simply put yourself in the Cc list
and you will see when anything is done.

The specification is nearing completion at
http://www.ooowiki.de/ImpressMultiDisplaySpecification so anyone is welcome to
help out with that. Once the specification is complete it will need to be
implemented in code. Thanks to all who have been helping out with this...

In the mean time, there's not much to be done unless you can code and produce
patches based on the specification. This won't go into OOo 2.0 but hopefully we
can get it soon afterwards, depending on developer's schedules.

*** Issue 55319 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

*** Issue 53685 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

I think that now OpenOffice 2.0 has been released, this issue should take high
priority in future updates. It is really slowing the adoption of OpenOffice.

Created attachment 31580 [details]
initial stab at a vcl patch to support discovering and using multiple monitors on windows

I think the Specification is getting to a good state now.
I propose that implementation should be split into two parts:
1) Enable a simple selection of the target display in the options, that puts the
presentation onto that display when fullscreen, but doesn't implement any
special controls from the main window ('presentation mode')
2) Enable a presentation mode that would provide better control over the
presentation from the main window.
2) is likely to be much more work than 1), and 1) would be very useful for lots
of people and make OpenOffice.org at least an option for presenting presentations.
The patch I attached should always use a second monitor for displaying
fullscreen presentations if one is available on Windows, and fall back to the
primary monitor it there is only one.
Work to do:
- find a way to communicate the desired display. This would probably involve
changes to the vcl API. It seems like it would be a good idea to be able to
enumerate the available displays in VCL, and have a way of specifying one on the
pFrame object.
- clean up / revive the patch I had for user interface to select the display,
and make it use the VCL enumerator
- implement a similar patch to VCL for other Operating Systems

Is anyone from the VCL team able to comment on the strategy or at least the API?

I think implementing multiple monitor support in two phases is a good idea.  For
PowerPoint 2000 (which I currently use) the only option they give you in the
slide show setup is to select which monitor you want the slide show to be
displayed on from a drop-down selection box.  They didn’t add the presenter view
feature until the next version of PowerPoint.  This would at least make Impress
a usable option for many users who can’t use it now, until the additional
feature of a presenter view can be developed.  Also, one question I have is
whether or not the monitor display selection and the presenter view option will
be saved for each time you use Impress, or will you have to reselect them each
time you use the program.  I have a problem currently with PowerPoint 2000
remembering which monitor I selected last time for the show to be displayed on.
(Which they aren’t going to fix until the next Office Service Pack and they
force you to call customer service to get the hotfix now which they asked for
credit card information to charge me $35 to talk to someone to get the fix when
I called. Although they did say in the notes on the following support page link
for this bug that the fees for customer service may be cancelled if they
determine a specific update will solve the problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;241277 )

Issue 55288 should also be marked as a duplicate of this issue and then closed.

For me this is a make or break problem with using OO.  I use it personally, but 
for church use, it is a non starter without multi monitor support.  (If I used 
PowerPoint at work, this would hurt me there as well)  I cannot believe how 
ignored this needed feature is.

The lack of this feature is definitely a show-stopper. It's completely 
unacceptable that I can't see the next slide and my notes on my laptop's screen 
while the presentation is shown on the big screen. What's even more unacceptable 
is that this is scheduled for "OOo Later". Actually I can't even believe it. Or 
maybe the people making OOo Impress never use it themselves and thus don't 
realize how very important this feature is.

If this is a showstopper, remember that you can always buy the commercial
products like Microsoft Office. 
OpenOffice is a free program for you and me, and an amazing such. Be kind on the
developers. :)

Still, I too hope that this feature will be given priority. 
Thanks David Frasier for your work on this issue so far. 

While not available for all OSes, try
http://documentation.openoffice.org/HOW_TO/misc/multiple_screens.pdf the method
may port to others.

Everyone who thinks he needs this feature is free to hire a developer to
implement it. It is free software as in free beer, someone has to order the round...

*** Issue 55288 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

I presume vcl falls into the UI project, so should I use dev@ui.openoffice.org
to discuss changes?

vcl is part of gsl (graphics system layer). Discussion about vcl changes would
be for dev@gsl.openoffice.org.

Thanks to the gsl developers, we are having a good discussion and getting things
implemented.

http://gsl.openoffice.org/servlets/BrowseList?list=dev&by=thread&from=1166618 if
you want to follow the technical details.

In the mean time, for all the enthusiastic non-coders, we need to split the
specification into two parts:

1) a simple option for selecting the monitor to display the presentation on in
fullscreen mode

2) the presenter mode

I propose migrating it to the new wiki at
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/ first, using the same name, and then
doing the split. Any volunteers?

Hopefully we will then be able to fast-track 1)...

Notes on wiki migration:

I think we should use the same names on the new wiki as there are on the old one.
So lets first migrate ImpressMultiDisplaySpecification from the old wiki to the
new one.
It would be nice to also migrate SpecificationGuide and SpecificationTemplate
(which was renamed to SpecificationVorlage and then deleted, but it you go to
SpecificationVorlage and click on Show Changes you can see the last version).

Note that the new wiki is using MediaWiki whereas the old one was MoinMoin so
there will probably need to be syntax changes. Add a pointer to the old wiki for
each page and vice versa for good measure :-)

Once all thats done, ImpressMultiDisplaySpecification could be split into
ImpressSelectDisplaySpecification and ImpressControllerDisplaySpecification

I just ported over the main spec to the new wiki.  The only big syntax problem
(that I see) was with tables.  The new wiki also automatically adds the TOC, so
I took that part out.  I'll let it settle a bit to give folks time to check it
out and make any refinements before proceeding with the split.

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/ImpressMultiDisplaySpecification

I also made complementing pointers to the wiki's from each other.

- Jason

Thansk purdy, great work! Next up we need to split the specs

OK I've split the specs:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Impress_simple_multiple_display_specification
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Impress_presenter_mode_specification

A few people have mailed me privately about this issue asking when it will be
finished. Please avoid this, all the information is publicly available here and
on the wiki. It just takes time I could spend coding... But it has been nice to
hear that people are interested :-)

So for clarity: There is no binary version of the preliminary work I've done
available, and I won't make one available until the simple multiple display
options are properly implemented. When that happens, it will be made very clear
here whether there's something you can download or not...

*** Issue 16334 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

*** Issue 60555 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

Issue 18486 is almost certainly a duplicate of this issue. However, with 44
votes I am reluctant to close that duplicate. Could someone more superior
(lars?) have a look at that?...

Cheers,
Andrew

Unfortunately my time availability has decreased drastically so I've been unable
to progress this further at the moment. Anyone else wanting to do it is welcome
to  step up!

I've added some details on workarounds to this wiki page:

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Impress_multiple_display_support

One of these works on Windows using Microsoft's PowerPoint Viewer and a tool
called multimon, the other is the abovementioned Xinerama idea on Linux.

I don't know if I should be filing a separate bug report for this issue:  

OO 2.0.2 hangs when I try to work in dual monitor mode (Matrox G450 dual head
card) with Mandriva 2006.  It works fine in single monitor mode on the same
system.  I am able to set options to enable or disable 3D OpenGL support in OO
but opening any document/presentation etc causes a 'hang'...  Same with
importing/creating any document/presentation.   Version 1.1.5 shipped with
Mandriva 2006 worked relatively ok in dual head mode.

@shashikirang: yes, please file a separate bug.

Hi just tossing in my $0.02 for this feature... I would love to see a way of
setting the presentation resolution as well as the "select other monitor" option.  

My system currently uses Nvidia Twinview and the projector will only do 640x480
where as my computer monitor does 1024x768.  Impress did the smart thing and is
trying to make a 1024x768 presentation (matching the resolution of the screen
with Impress on it), but it is trying to put it on the 640x480 screen (primary
monitor) - needless to say it doesn't fit all the way...

Just a reminder that both options are important, keep up the great work!!!

*** Issue 65355 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

so why not finaly add it to OOo 2.0.5, here we go

So to clear this issue up a bit, I will implement only the feature that you can
select the monitor that display the fullscreen slideshow with this issue. For a
presenter view or screen resolution change we should need new issues.

Why? Just to keep this simple, I think multi monitor support is importent so wee
need this ASAP.

I will add the multi monitor feature description to the general slideshow
specification at

http://specs.openoffice.org/impress/slideshow/ControllingSlideShow.odt

Target can not be 2.0.4 since we missed that ui freeze date and there is still
some work to do, but expect the next update after 2.0.4 to have this feature

Hurrah for cl!
That specification on controlling presentations is really good.
As you will know from the bug above, we started working on some specifications
for the simple multiple screen support and also the more complex part of a
presentation controller (which I agree should go into a different bug) in the wiki.
Unfortunately (IMHO) the new specification template system doesn't allow for the
same kind of easy collaboration in building specifications, but you may want to
glance through the specifications already written to see if there is anything
you can take for them for the simple multiple screen support:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Impress_simple_multiple_display_specification

Really looking forward to having this feature implemented, thanks for taking it on

For all interested, the spec (found in the URL field of this issue) should now
be final and implementation will be finished for 2.1 release.

We added an option to span the presentation across all monitors if this is possible.

Will it be possible to edit/add slides when the presentation is running?

I've found that if I am editing text currently, I can make changes to text 
boxes present in the active presentation when it is running.

They don't show up straight away, but next time the slide is they do.

I know PP2000 had a feature that you could add text and change it live, is 
this an option, as in a livce woship environment it works really well, with 
pp2000 I could have a verse nicely layed out on the projector looking pro, 
live without the need for the speaker notes, just pasting it onto the text 
frame in a slide window.

Also it would be nice to be able to say,

If the presentation is on slide 5 but I want to display slide 15, just have 15 
on the program screen and press F5, and have the presentation jump to slide 15?

These would make it better than the current version of powerpoint.

And give OOO a definite edge.Ben

RE: benjaminwt

There is a feature request open for similar behavior, 
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=64670

It doesn't include the enhanced flow control, but appears to be much more
directly related to your idea.

Also consider voting for 
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=64670

This would allow the live editing of the presentation .

changing target

feature ready for testing

cl: Is this in a CWS or integrated into the main CVS code? Could not find a
relevant CWS and not mentioned in the spec... eager to try it out :-)

Hi, from my point of view (i.e. user experience) this feature is not ready for
QA. The spec is not done. The alignment of the controls need to be revised an
the strings are inconsistent. I will work on this ASAP, most likely today.

spec proposal done with new strings for multiple monitor support.

added online help to file simpress/01/06080000.xhp in cws impresshydra

veryfied in cws, now moving to qa

fixed

CGU: Verified in cws impresshydra

quote: "fixed"

Wonderful, wonderful news. Thank you very much, you wich helped 
implementing this feature! :)


But... since I'm a person that whould be helped by this feature right away 
I have a question. :D
Is there a patch that can be applied to the current release of openoffice
(2.0.3, or soon 2.0.4) that would give this functionality?

If there was a possibility (for the daring and 'not complaining' people if
things whouldn't work :) to patch this functionality into a currently publicly
available version of openoffice that whould be soo appreciated!

Is this mayhap possible somehow? And, if so, can you instruct your eagerly
awaiting friends here? 

there is no simple patch for this issue. The changes for vcl where not easy, for
the unix version we had to do major reworks. Since vcl became incompatible, that
means basicaly that there is no single library to be exchanged, but around 30%
including all applications libraries. So if you want this feature for 2.0.4 you
need to find someone who does a complete build of 2.0.4 with the corresponding
cws integrated.

But you don't have to wait long, the cws is already integrated into the current
2.1 code line, so the next 2.1 developer build will include this new feature,
ready for you to test. Please do so as we still have some times to find issues
with various different hardware settings.

If you wait for 2.1 final to test this feature, please do not complain that you
have to wait for 2.2 to fix all issues for your hardware setup :)

Created attachment 39614 [details]
Test case specification

Quote: cl Fri Oct 6 06:20:55
> But you don't have to wait long, the cws is already integrated into the current
> 2.1 code line, so the next 2.1 developer build will include this new feature,
> ready for you to test. Please do so as we still have some times to find issues
> with various different hardware settings.

Alright! Thanks for the good news. 
Eagerly awaiting the opportunity to test the 2.1 builds. 

cl: I have a current build of 2.0.3, and could potentially build 2.0.4.
For each of these cases, if I used the cws (or extracted a patch from it and
applied it), would it be likely to build successfully or are there other cws's
etc that it depends on in 2.1?
I suspect it would be more tricky on 2.0.3 but if there are no dependencies I
will probably give it a go...

For all potential testers watching this issue... 
A 2.1 developer snapshot is now available, with the feature in question 
included. 
Download it here: http://download.openoffice.org/680/


Test it and report under this issue if you experience any bugs connected to this
feature. (developers, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here :)

Is there any way to get more of a "presenter view" than the small box listing
the slide names?

Thumbnails would really help see at a glance what the slides were, especially as
an entire monitor is potentially available for the presenter view.

I tried to run this version -(2.1) on my mandriva 2006 box with a Matrox 400
card connected to two monitors and it does not work ok.  But it could be
something related to the Mandriva libraries - (see related previous bug report :
63925 http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=63925 ) which is a pity.
 I guess I will have to wait for Mandriva to come out with the newer version or
try to compile from source and see if that works for me...

If that helps any: the multiscreen support on Linux was developed and tested
using Xorg on a Matrix G400 on OpenSUSE 10.1, so there are good chances it works
for you if mandriva updates its drivers.

I strongly agree that we need more of a Powerpoint style "Presenter View" if we 
want this to be a real contender. Right now I'm holding out on switching over 
to Impress at a few locations because of this very issue.

I do want to say thanks for the work that has been done. It is appreciated. I 
don't want to sound like I am unappreciative. I just want to make sure the 
current project isn't completed and marked as done. This project won't 
be "done" until a good "presenter view" is in place. Once done, this could be a 
big new feature!

I think this issue 12719 is just the basic multiple-monitor support, so I filed
issue 71505 for "add a presenter view" (like PowerPoint).  Please feel free to
monitor or vote for that issue.

CGU: Integrated in OOo 2.1

Have just downloaded 2.1rc2 to test this feature on Windows XP on my laptop... A
few points of feedback:

1) Connecting a secondary display requires a restart

Although I can connect a second monitor dynamically on Windows, I have to
restart OpenOffice.org (including the QuickStarter) before the multiple monitors
section of the options become enabled.
This should not be necessary...

2) The monitors enumerated are incorrect.

I have a primary and secondary display as can be seen through the Windows
Control Panel Display dialog. But I get the following listed:
  - Monitor 1 (primary)
  - Monitor 2
  - Monitor 3
  - All monitors
Monitor 2 seems to be exactly the same as Monitor 1, and I have to select
Monitor 3 in order to get this to work.

I guess I should have tried one of the developer snapshots to give earlier
feedback :-(

This has been marked CLOSED/FIXED - should I raise these issues in a separate
bug? It feels frustrating if these fixes have to take another few months...
after being so glad that this feature is at last implemented

Hi David,

thanks for your feedback. If you have open issues please submit new ones and one
per issue. For the restart, yes it is this way, do you really think it is not
sufficient? I didn't think that one changes his monitor setting while he runs
the office.

The problem with the 3 listed monitors seems to be a problem with your windows.
We only report the monitors that the system reports to us, so for some reasons
your windows tell us that there are indeed three displays. What do you see in
the display properties of windows, two or three?

As usual the first thing developers must understand are the "usage patterns". 

When someone is using a laptop for presentation is happening very often to
switch between one and two monitors without restating the OS (or quickstarter).
I can even happen when the presentation document is already opened. 

I'm pretty sure that this case is like a nightmare for a coder but this is the
true reality and good software should work as expected.

created issue 72472 for runtime detection of changes to the monitor list.

Thanks cl. Have added issue 72484 for the monitor detection (since dynamic
detection already added).