#1 2017-10-08 18:13:19

robb

New Member

Registered: 2017-10-08

Posts: 1

Auto set dual screens when new monitor is connected

Since I am too lazy to open up arandr to set my screens every time I connect my laptop to a monitor, I wrote a script which would do just that. Then decided to make it to completely automatize the process. Put this script in your autostart.sh file as "/path/to/script/autoscreens.sh &". and you'll have the script set the screens every time you connect or disconnect a screen. Works only for single screen - dual screen setups.

#!/bin/bash

# Setting the initial states of the screen. 

currentState=''
oldState='single'
secondDisplay='' # Second display port name will be stored here, need it when it's not connected as well so xrandr will be able to set it after it's been disconnected 



function checkConnected {  # Will check if any new display has been connected or disconnected to the system. Runs the next function if anything new happens
	
	if [[ "`xrandr -q | grep ' connected' | wc -l`" == 1 ]]; then
		currentState='single'
	else
		currentState='double'
	fi
	
	if [[ $currentState != $oldState ]]; then
		doubleConnected
	fi
	
	}
	
function doubleConnected {
	
	# Grab the connected display's ports and log them in an array
	connectedDisplays="`xrandr -q | grep ' connected' | sed 's/\s.*$//'`" 
    connectedArray=($connectedDisplays)
    
    # Grab the resolutions of the connected displays, log them in an array, same order as the display's array
    resolutions="`xrandr -q | sed -n '/\ connected/{n;p}'`"
    arr2=($resolutions)
    resolutionsArray=()
    
    for i in "${!arr2[@]}"; do
        if [[ ${arr2[i]} == *"x"* ]] ; then
        resolutionsArray+=(${arr2[i]})
    fi
    done

	# Set the position of the second display. It will be set exactly to the left of the first display, top edges perfectly aligned

    position="`echo ${resolutionsArray[0]} | sed 's/x.*$//'`" # Grab the width of the first display
    exo="x0"
    pos="$position$exo" # Add "x0" to the width, so that second position can be set
    
    # Check the current state of connected displays. 
    if [[ $currentState = "double" ]] && [[ $currentState != $oldState ]]; then
		secondDisplay=${connectedArray[1]} # Logs the name of the second display's port so it can use it to set it as --off if it disconnects
		
		# Sets up the double screen as, top edge perfectly aligned, first display on the left, second to the right, and sets up the SECOND display as primary
        xrandr --output ${connectedArray[0]} --mode ${resolutionsArray[0]} --pos 0x0 --rotate normal --output ${connectedArray[1]} --mode ${resolutionsArray[1]} --pos $pos --primary --rotate normal
        oldState='double'
        nitrogen --restore # Change this with the appropiate command of your wallpaper manager if you don't use nitrogen 
    elif [[ $currentState = "single" ]] && [[ $currentState != $oldState ]]; then
        xrandr --output ${connectedArray[0]} --mode ${resolutionsArray[0]} --pos 0x0 --rotate normal --output $secondDisplay --off
        oldState='single'
        nitrogen --restore
    fi 
	
	}

while sleep 5; do checkConnected; done # Execute "checkConnected" function every 5 seconds

Cheers!

qcgxr

Member

Registered: 2016-08-31

Posts: 29

Re: Auto set dual screens when new monitor is connected

This is great, thanks. I always hate messing with a/randr when trying get ready for a lecture. I've been passing a couple saved defaults to rofi but this makes that setup that much better.