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What I ran into

Strolling through the keys in dconf-editor, looking for something else, I ran into the screen's information in

/org/compiz/profiles/unity/plugins/core/outputs

which showed the values:

['1680x1050+0+0', '1280x1024+1680+0']

on my system.

This surprised me a bit. I use to get this information, parsed from the output of xrandr.
Since dconf is usually the preferred way to retrieve settings data, especially when used in loops, I was curious to the timing of both:

xrandr:

real    0m0.067s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.003s

dconf read /org/compiz/profiles/unity/plugins/core/outputs:

real    0m0.004s
user    0m0.000s
sys     0m0.003s

...which shows a dramatic difference.

A great part of my answers around here include a background script. In many cases I use xrandr in a periodical loop. In other cases I use xrandr only at startup of the script to "save fuel", while it would be more elegant to be able to update the information while the script is running (e.g. when an external screen is connected).

Using dconfinstead of xrandrwould therefore be a major improvement in many of my answers.

However

Editing in the "new insight" would involve many answers in my case. I wouldn't want to be suspected of abusing the system to get older posts to the front page.

My question is therefore, before flooding the site with edited older posts:

Is it "not done" to serial- edit your own posts?

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  • 1
    Be sure it works, though. That command outputs nothing for me.
    – muru
    Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 14:31
  • @muru that surprises me, I tested it from 14.04 up to 15.10 (Ubuntu "regular") . What did you test it on?
    – Jacob Vlijm
    Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 14:33
  • 14.04, over SSH. With DISPLAY=:0 exported (xrandr works fine).
    – muru
    Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 14:33
  • dconf list /org/compiz/profiles/unity/plugins/core/ tells me it has vsize, hsize and active-plugins. And I don't use Unity, though I have it installed.
    – muru
    Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 14:36
  • @muru I will hold to edit it in then, thanks for the info!
    – Jacob Vlijm
    Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 14:37
  • 4
    Just do it in small enough spurts to avoid flooding the front page. 4-5 at a time, then wait ~15 minutes. There is an edit limit for your own posts, to prevent abuse.
    – Seth Mod
    Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 16:26
  • @Seth thanks! That will most likely not be a problem. Looking at muru's comment, the edit will probably a conditional edit in the head of the script(s): if /org/compiz/profiles/unity/plugins/core/outputs has a valid output then let the script use it in a loop instead of xrandr. That will take much more time to edit then mass- replacing the use of xrandr.
    – Jacob Vlijm
    Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 16:34
  • 2
    I think the problem mentioned by muru will impact the script on all systems without Unity.... Also if your linking the same scripts it may be worthwhile having them in the same place and linking them.
    – Wilf
    Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 22:27
  • @Wilf as a result of muru's comment, I decided to leave it as it is, for compatibility reasons. On specifically Unity scripts, especially in loops, I might use the gsettings- way incidentally. The question is relevant to me however. It happened before that I came to the conclusion a lot of answers could be improved by a "new insight".
    – Jacob Vlijm
    Commented Dec 15, 2015 at 22:30

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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I have nothing against you improving all of your old posts serially: personally I wouldn't even mind having the active questions page flooded with your edits at some point but indeed someone will do, so maybe keep the number of edits acceptable in function of the current activity (to be clearer, avoid making the active questions page become orange).

I think an edit of yours per 4-5 other posts (in average) in the active questions page would be largely acceptable by everyone.

2
  • 5
    Great line: just avoid making the active questions tab become orange :)
    – Jacob Vlijm
    Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 14:29
  • 1
    @JacobVlijm I meant "page" rather than "tab". :)
    – kos
    Commented Dec 8, 2015 at 14:32
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If you think an edit to your own answers would improve them, just do it!

Don't care about the main site.

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