enact

enact will detect the proper resolution of your secondary monitor (if any) and automatically set it up as soon as you plug it in (or out).

It uses xrandr under the hood and works great with window managers like i3, bspwm, and others.

Use cases:

• a laptop and an abritrary secondary monitor (e.g. at work, home, etc.)
• a desktop with two monitors

Install

Download the binary from releases or install via cargo: cargo install --git https://github.com/chmln/enact

Usage

Test it out then place this in your .xinitrc.

# Set up second monitor above laptop 
enact --pos top

Or to do the same, but also watch for changes and allow hotplugging

enact --pos top --watch &

Comparison With Similar Tools

Pros:

• monitor hotplugging that actually works (never got this to work with autorandr or any other tool)
• no need to setup any "profiles" or configuration, it just works
• Single compiled binary, no dependencies on python or anything else apart from xrandr

Drawbacks:

• Supports up to two displays max (at least currently)

Icon Attribution

“Monitor” by icon lauk, licensed under CC BY 3.0.