screenful VS autorandr

You can either: - use awesome signals: screen.connect_signal("property::geometry", yourfunc) screen.connect_signal("list", yourfunc) ( https://awesomewm.org/doc/api/classes/screen.html#screen.list, https://awesomewm.org/doc/api/classes/screen.html#screen.geometry ) and poke s.outputs from function yourfunc(s) (along with parsing io.popen("xrandr -q --current") if needed), but that will only catch "connected & active" displays (i.e. not in xrandr --output XXX --off* state) - parse output (also with lua) of *xev -root -event randr -1 (that should catch everything) - use something along the lines of udev hook + /sys parsing if you use drm enabled driver (something along the lines of https://github.com/dluksza/screenful ) - use hybrid of above

could use the postswitch hook provided by autorandr, though this would require letting autorandr manage your display layout as well: https://github.com/phillipberndt/autorandr

autorandr worked great for me for hot plugging when I would frequently use my laptop with two external monitors.

Autorandr does run in the background as it is a daemon. For systemd integration see https://github.com/phillipberndt/autorandr/blob/master/contrib/systemd/autorandr.service

I use autorandr (https://github.com/phillipberndt/autorandr) to load display configurations with a hotkey. I'm 100% sure there is a "better" way of doing so over my setup.

If your using X11, try autorandr. It's a bit clunky for me with the windows moving around after waking up but they eventually find where they're supposed to be... mostly.

I would suggest taking a look at something like autorandr to help dynamically adjust your settings when you connect/disconnect.

There's also autorandr that allows you to save monitor setups and automatically switch between them as you connect/disconnect displays

autorandr (link) (xorg)

No, but you can save settings to script and run on login. Arandr does it with GUI. Autorandr automates and manages multiple setups.