I've been having a similar issue myself; I have two monitors and two computers, but use both monitors for each computer (one on DVI inputs, one on DisplayPort). Not finding any obvious solutions, I went ahead and tried to fix it myself :)
The end result is that I've added some code to synergy that will automatically tell your monitor to switch inputs when the mouse leaves a particular display. I'm still testing it out, but so far it's working quite well for my purposes!
I'm happy to share my changes (either in source or binary form), but you should know that it's sort of a half-baked solution that's designed more for my scenario (where all monitors are shared and I only have 2 PCs). I'm not sure if I'll ever get around to a more 'general purpose' configurable solution...
UPDATE 4/28
Since this has been working well for me, I'm happy to share out a Windows installer with my changes. Source code is available upon request in case anyone wants to improve upon this.
Download link (private build): synergy-1.4.8-Windows-x86.exe
Sample configuration file
Instructions:
- Download and install synergy-1.4.8-Windows-x86.exe from my dropbox link above. Make sure to uninstall any previous versions of Synergy.
- Copy the configuration file to the proper place on your computer, and use the Synergy UI to point it at that file.
- Update the configuration file for your system. In my default config file, I have 2 PCs (Cosmo and Pinot), and each is connected to the same 2 monitors (Cosmo with DVI-D, Pinot with DisplayPort). I have turned off the auto-mouse linking in favor of hotkeys (CTRL+F1/F2) for switching monitors/inputs. I recommend you do the same, as changing monitor inputs can take a few seconds and can only be done by the current input--so if you go back and forth across the border quickly you can get in a weird state.
I've added one new configuration property to the screens
section, called monitorinput
. The value is the input ID to switch to when the mouse leaves that PC (so it's a little backwards from how you might expect it to be written, as you set the input of the other PC). The values I'm aware of:
- 1: Analog (VGA)
- 3: DVI-D
- 15: DisplayPort
If these don't work, or if you have additional inputs, you can download a tool called softMCCS which will give you the DDI/CI information from your monitor, including which input IDs are supported.
As you can see from the example, I set monitorinput = 15
for Cosmo (meaning, when leaving Cosmos set the input to DisplayPort which is what Pinot uses), and monitorinput = 3
for Pinot (meaning, when leaving Pinot set the input to DVI-D which is what Cosmo uses). It only really supports two PCs at this point.
That should be enough to get you up and running; let me know if it works (or if you have issues). Hope this helps!
1don't know but i think the normal way with multiple computers and one keyb monitor and mouse, is a KVM Switch. It's hardware, but you switch from one computer to another or between 2 computers, with a keyboard shortcut. – barlop – 2012-03-23T01:05:25.630
Is the intention here that if you are in W7 and move the mouse to a position on the screen, W7 will go into powersave mode for the screen, which will then cause the VGA input to auto selected for XP? Even if you could do this, how would you get back? Once you did the same on XP, both OSs would have powered down their screens. – Paul – 2012-03-23T02:11:54.957
@barlop, yes, I know about KVMs, but the idea was to save some money, to have less wires on the table and to avoid pressing a button every time you switch between PCs. The first 2 are solved with the help of Synergy and alternatives. And I'd like the third (pressing the monitor button) get done automatically, too. – evgeny9 – 2012-03-23T10:28:15.103
@Paul, you got my intention perfectly right. It's strange, but it works with my monitor: maybe it starts polling the interfaces, when one is switched off? – evgeny9 – 2012-03-23T10:38:28.287
Yeah, I did the same thing once, with my monitor if there was an active DVI, then it didn't matter if the VGA was live, so I only need to shutdown the dvi to switch, and then liven it to get it back (by moving the cursor back in to it). I used nircmd bound to a hotkey to turn off the screen. – Paul – 2012-03-23T12:05:17.977