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I've 4 monitors connected to a pc running CentOS 7. Each physical monitor/display should show a website in full screen and auto refresh it every x seconds.

I've tried:

  • opening from bash and moving with xdotool -> how can I distinguish between the 4 chrome or firefox windows? If I don't do it and apply to the last active this might become unreliable with other programs open.
  • researched devilspie, seems it has the same problem (can't distinguish between multiple chrome/firefox windows)
  • using DISPLAY variable -> does only find one display 0.0
  • https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/monitor-master/ -> does not work with extended workspace, contacted developer

I've only a xrandr bash script to rearrange the displays when they become connected (three of four may be switched off to save power).

I would use a firefox/chrome add on for the auto refresh functionality.

Maybe someone can give me a hint how to reliably do this?

Marius Pfeffer
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  • I type "make chrome auto" in Google and before I can type " refresh", its the first suggestion...apparently "easy auto refresh" plugin will do it. ?? – ABuckau Jul 07 '16 at 13:12
  • autorefresh is not the problem. I'm stuck with moving the correct window to the coordinates. Maybe start it from a bash script, get the PID and use it for xdotool – Marius Pfeffer Jul 07 '16 at 13:15
  • Just reread your post..I doubt you'll find anything that handles when the monitor(s) is off. Hopefully someone else answers and proves me wrong :) – ABuckau Jul 07 '16 at 13:16
  • In Firefox I do this in my addon NativeShot, can you please test it to ensure that it opens a window on each monitor - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nativeshot/ - if it works right let me know and I'll share with you how I accomplished it. How are you getting the information on all the monitors right now? When the monitor is off it should not get a window in my addon, the multi monitor detection code works like that. – Noitidart Jul 08 '16 at 08:56
  • yes, multi monitor detection works, currently I'm opening chrome windows from a python script, use theri pid and xdotool to move them to the desired position. I'm searching for a really easy solution. – Marius Pfeffer Jul 09 '16 at 15:25
  • finally, after a couple of hours I've found a solution: https://www.overclockers.at/linux_bsd_and_others/linux-und-der-dual-screen-anwendung-auf-spezifisch_235127 – Marius Pfeffer Jul 09 '16 at 19:55

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In addition to the "easy auto refresh" chrome plugin. I have another idea for you, why not use a chrome extension for handling the positioning. It is of course, only for chrome(maybe thats fine for you).

Background: We had related difficulties. Internal webapp that opens multiple documents in windows, and need to be placed in other monitors. The javascript does not support this, for security reasons and only a native extension can properly work with the tabs/windows objects.

Therefore, we have created an open source chrome extension for doing exactly that: flexible windows position across multi-monitor setups.

In your case you can define for each monitor a website-rule that the window would appear there.

The chrome extension is called "MultiWindow Positioner" and its complete free. You can get it at the chrome store here

The actual source code you find in github in the project chrome-multiwindow-positioner

Disclaimer: I am the maintainer of the open source (MIT) github project. If there any interesting idea, or comments feel free to share them here.

Igor Lino
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  • I've already found a way to do it. I'm using python3 with selenium, open a new firefox windows (this solution works best even with multiple windows), move it to a specific screen (accourding coordinates), emulate f11 to make it full screen. – Marius Pfeffer Nov 28 '16 at 16:27