PR proposal: multi-monitor improvements

[Lurux]

I am willing to improve the multi-monitor experience for new users by either: (1) allowing a panel to be displayed on all screen, or (2) restoring the option to clone a panel to another screen.

If the second option is chosen, additional work may be required to allow the wifi, volume and power applets to be added to several panels, are they are currently limited to a single instance.

See also:
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/1427
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/1428

[mtwebster]

There are technical reasons some applets don't allow multiple instances.

There's another PR already open for this, but it's unlikely to be merged - linuxmint/cinnamon#13035
There are multiple 'discussions' already as well.

It's trivial to add multiple panels and populate them with applets, so this is not a high priority to us.

[Lurux]

I'd like to argue having to fully replicate the panel manually just to use a multi-monitor setup may be more of a frustrating experience for new users than you realize - after all, even though this is something that only needs to be done once, this is very much the first impression new users will have with the system, which may easily turn them off if they're not willing to do that work manually.

It should also be noted that, especially with the current panel customization flow, replicating a panel by hand might be more annoying than you realize. If you try it now, you might achieve this fairly quickly, as you already know all the knobs and options to batch this swiftly, but you might want to put yourself in the shoes of a new user who doesn't know about the customization flow, where to find the applets and which to add, how to move them to the correct position, etc - if you don't already know the options, this operation is very high-friction, for an something that many users perceive as what should be a fairly basic option.

This is not just me saying it, but many users around here as well as several acquaintances of mine which I've directed to Linux Mint around the years. I specialize in HCI and this is what I'm interested about, and I've always admired the whole team for how user-centered your development process is, hence why I'm doubly surprised you don't think of it as a more serious issue to be addressed.

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It shall be noted I'm not asking the team to do all the work here, as I am more than willing to re-implement a "clone" option for panels (which seems to have existed in the past), so I don't want you to take this as criticism or anything - I'm just interested to know if you'd be willing to merge such work if I put in the effort to implement it.

As for the volume and wifi applets, I'm very surprised and interested to dig through the reason why their current implementation limits them to one instance each, and, considering myself moderately to fairly versed in lower-level Linux stuff, would be willing to dig through this, again, only if the team is interested in the first place.

If we end up finding that potential solutions would be too much of a hassle to maintain in the long run I have no issues with that, I'd just like to know if I should start said research in the first place, if the team is interested in third-party contributions 😄