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Ok, so you have successfully configured dual monitor for you (Gnome/KDE) desktop, and now you have decided to take it even further and install and configure Avant Window Navigator – way to go!
Although most of your installation/configuration will succeed by following one of the tutorials, in case if you have dual monitors, and/or you use Option "MergedFB" in "xorg.conf" to merge two monitors into a one screen, standard tutorials will not work. This will require additional hacking to get AWN to work right, and here is where this article comes in 
PROBLEM: One of the problems that AWN has with multiple screens/monitors is to identify the position of where it needs to put its task bar. In case of two monitors merged into one big screen, it does not adjust to this new slightly larger "coordinate system", and fails to place its task bar to the right place on a screen (usually at the bottom of the bottom screen). This can be solved, of course 
SOLUTION: AWN stores monitor resolution info in a file called "%gconf.xml" which is located here:
user@host:~/.gconf/apps/avant-window-navigator$ ll total 32 drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-07-18 11:41 app drwx------ 4 user user 4096 2007-06-26 23:47 applets drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-08-06 21:52 bar -rw------- 1 user user 776 2007-09-10 09:52 %gconf.xml -rw------- 1 user user 776 2007-06-27 22:57 %gconf.xml.dual -rw------- 1 user user 776 2007-06-27 10:41 %gconf.xml.single drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-06-27 17:59 title drwx------ 2 user user 4096 2007-06-30 14:16 window_manager user@host:~/.gconf/apps/avant-window-navigator$
"%gconf.xml" is an XML file that has several elements called "entry". The ones we are interested in would be:
<entry name="monitor_height" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1024">
</entry>
<entry name="monitor_width" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1280">
</entry>These values would work fine if we had a single 1280×1024 monitor, but if we have our (e.g.) bottom monitor as 1280×800, in order for AWN to display its task bar in a correct spot (the bottom of the bottom monitor), values have to change to:
<entry name="monitor_height" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1824">
</entry>
<entry name="monitor_width" mtime="1179886419" type="int" value="1280">
</entry>So what we did, we summed up Y-Positions of both monitors together: 1024 + 800 = 1824. Now when AWN is calculating its task bar’s Y-Pos offset, it will take 1824, as the Y-Pos max range, and will do the right thing!
Interesting way of fixing the problem, it seems like it’d work, although I need to try it out myself to make sure. Thanks anyway – good read.
it does work I’ve just tried it (have an external monitor). Although I had to change the x coordinate since my extrnl monitor is left of, and not an bottom of
I think that was the reason I’ve never used awn, cause I have an external monitor at work, and it failed to position itself there.
Thank you very much – will definitely try these steps.
interesting… I guess awn should be updated on that as well
Yey! You are awesome! Very cool – I was looking for this for several days until found your website.
The only thing for anybody who will follow the described approach would be to restart their PC after reconfiguring the %gconf.xml.
Again – Big Thanks!
didnt work for me – using 0.3.2
@George,
Can you post your results?
– Toly
I was having this problem with side by side setup with the laptop monitor and its external monitor (1440×900 and 1920×1080) , since it was side by side instead of adding the two monitor heights i took the max so Max(900,1080) = 1080 and setting the monitor height to this seemed to work and now awn correctly shows up in the right position. Thanks
This post worked for me until I upgraded to 9.10 then nothing I tried worked is anyone having a similar issue or is this just a fluke on my machine?
@Prince,
Have not tried it on 9.10, as I take it 9.10 is a “wait for a couple of months and maybe upgrade” kind of release..
But if you get it working on 9.10, please post back, so other Ubuntu fans, including myself, can follow.
Thank you,
/Toly
Editing xml files of gconf is not the best way: using gconftool-2 the recommended way:
Getting the right path you can use the “gconf-editor”-programm.
NOTE: Doesn’t work on Ubuntu 11.10 (neither is applied to a running awn, not a newly restarted)
Greets Axel
Thanks Axel!