Multiple monitors
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I would like to know from any people that use multiple monitors for one PC what they find works well and any tips for making the best use of dual monitors
I just acquired a second 21" CRT and a dual-head video card (we currently have a corporate prohibition against buying LCD's :((; the Marketing fashion pigs were getting out of hand). I tend to run the app I'm debugging on the secondary monitor, and have Studio and my debugging tools on the primary. It's especially nice if your debugging drawing and focus and window activation issues. You probably know this, but I recommend that the monitors be the same physical size, and run the same resolution and color depth. Up to date video drivers are a must. The drivers that came with my card kept resetting the primary to 800x600x256 on restarts. It takes some time to change your work habits. You have to remember the extra real estate is there. I'm not using any of the 'multiple monitor managers' that are available, so it could be this is a little less friendly for me than it could be.
Software Zen:
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I would like to know from any people that use multiple monitors for one PC what they find works well and any tips for making the best use of dual monitors
At home, I have a 23" LCD as my main monitor and a 17" CRT as the secondary. At work, I have a triple-18" LCD set-up by MASS[^] that was a hand-me-down from my dad. I prefer the work set-up because the monitors are all the same size, which makes the whole experience better. At home, the monitors are not only different sizes, but sit at different heights, which makes you have to think too much about where everything is. I would definitely recommend going with matched monitors, if possible. As mentioned earlier in this thread, multi-monitor software, such as UltraMon[^] is extremely helpful. Moving a window from monitor to monitor while maximized is worth the price of admission alone. Charlie if(!curlies){ return; }
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I would like to know from any people that use multiple monitors for one PC what they find works well and any tips for making the best use of dual monitors
I have dual 21" monitors at home set to 1280 x 1024 each and at work I've got a couple of 19" monitors. For apps I do most of my work in the primary monitior (on the left) but shift apps back and forth between monitors. Here (At work) my keyboard and mouse are about in the center of both monitors. John
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I would like to know from any people that use multiple monitors for one PC what they find works well and any tips for making the best use of dual monitors
My second monitor died at work. :( It feels so limiting... Neil Van Eps "Staging servers are for compulsive bed-wetting types." - Chris Maunder
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I would like to know from any people that use multiple monitors for one PC what they find works well and any tips for making the best use of dual monitors
Millenium G550 - dual CRT monitors. While debugging application running on one monitor, the Visual Studio is running full screen on the second. You can actually single-step through a WM_PAINT message in your program this way. Works great for debugging drawing problems in your code. If you have 2 different projects open and you are comparing them, it makes it easier than doing a lot of window flipping.
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Jeffry J. Brickley wrote: As far as a developer goes, it's a life saver in real-time 3D graphics Seconded! Ant. I'm hard, yet soft.
I'm coloured, yet clear.
I'm fruity and sweet.
I'm jelly, what am I? Muse on it further, I shall return! - David Walliams (Little Britain)Okay, so it's a life saver even in realtime 2-D graphics - like during process control...
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I use a dual-hard video card, with the VGA-DVI adapter for the second monitor. Since my budget is tight, I have monitors are different sizes, which may sound weird, but it's not too bad. But I found that the prime monitor (ie: the larger one) should be placed physically on the right side. This is because most games you play will resize the monitor resolution (to play the intro movie let's say), which causes there to be "primary desktop spill-over" onto the second, smaller, on-the-left monitor. And *definitely* use UltraMon. I love the ability to drag a window from one monitor to the other, and the extended taskbar is handy. The kindest thing you can do for a stupid person, and for the gene pool, is to let him expire of his own dumb choices. [Roger Wright on stupid people] We're like private member functions [John Theal on R&D] We're figuring out the parent thing as we go though. Kinda like setting up Linux for the first time ya' know... [Nitron]
Atlantys wrote: prime monitor (ie: the larger one) should be placed physically on the right side I'll keep that in mind.
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IMO, it is best to have two monitors that are the same make and model. Preferably a model that has a thin edge. In the past i have used dual 17in Dell flat panels running off of a dual head video card. Since the video card i had in that box had one vga, and one dvi port, I had to use an adapter to get them both to a vga port. As for software, buy UltraMon! It will do many sweet things for you, like: a. Add a task bar to your second screen that only shows apps that are open on that screen b. Allow you to force an application to span both monitors (very sweet with VS. I generally keep aspx pages open on one mon, and codebehind on the second) c. Frilly stuff like different screen savers per mon, etc. just my 2 cents... Levi Rosol http://www.IvelDesigns.com
Levi.Rosol wrote: As for software, buy UltraMon! It will do many sweet things for you Okay - Soon as I have the second monitor added I'm downloading it. It sounds great!
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I typically have something like VS on one monitor and IE/Firefox on the other. With some apps like photoshop I'll have the toolbar and floating palettes on the second monitor so they don't get in the way of what I'm working on. SuzyB If I had a better memory I would remember more.
Suzanne Boyle wrote: With some apps like photoshop I'll have the toolbar and floating palettes on the second monitor so they don't get in the way of what I'm working on That is an excellent idea. I'll keep that in mind when I'm doing graphics stuff (which isn't all that often)
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I would like to know from any people that use multiple monitors for one PC what they find works well and any tips for making the best use of dual monitors
Used to use a laptop at work so my laptop was my primary screen and I had a 19 inch monitor raised above my laptop to make a very "tall" monitor. I liked this alot... Now I have a desktop at work so I have 2 17 inch monitors (same make/model) sitting side by side. Unlike many... I generally don't run one thing on one monitor and one on another... not in this configuration. (I did in the configuration above). Applications like Firefox or Microsoft Word and such I put in one monitor or the other but when writing code BOTH monitors are used. That's the whole reason I wanted the monitors. Now I have plenty of room for all my tools and menu options.
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Levi.Rosol wrote: As for software, buy UltraMon I'll second that. Ultramon is great, although the version I use at work is a little quircky sometimes when using the smart task bar feature. Ultramon won't know a window has been closed if it isn't closed in the "proper" manner, so I'll often have icons on the task bar for windows that are no longer open. The only way I've found to fix it is to shut down the smart task bar for that monitor and turn it back on, which is annoying. [edit]I just installed an update from v2.4 to v2.5. The bug described earlier seems to have been squashed.[/edit] Charlie if(!curlies){ return; }
> The only way I've found to fix it is to shut down the smart task bar for that monitor and > turn it back on, which is annoying I used to do that, until I realized that right-clicking on the toolbar and selecting Refresh actually worked... > I just installed an update from v2.4 to v2.5. The bug described earlier seems to have been > squashed Even better! :-D
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> The only way I've found to fix it is to shut down the smart task bar for that monitor and > turn it back on, which is annoying I used to do that, until I realized that right-clicking on the toolbar and selecting Refresh actually worked... > I just installed an update from v2.4 to v2.5. The bug described earlier seems to have been > squashed Even better! :-D
Daniel Desormeaux wrote: I used to do that, until I realized that right-clicking on the toolbar and selecting Refresh actually worked... :doh: Charlie if(!curlies){ return; }
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Used to use a laptop at work so my laptop was my primary screen and I had a 19 inch monitor raised above my laptop to make a very "tall" monitor. I liked this alot... Now I have a desktop at work so I have 2 17 inch monitors (same make/model) sitting side by side. Unlike many... I generally don't run one thing on one monitor and one on another... not in this configuration. (I did in the configuration above). Applications like Firefox or Microsoft Word and such I put in one monitor or the other but when writing code BOTH monitors are used. That's the whole reason I wanted the monitors. Now I have plenty of room for all my tools and menu options.
I have VS on one monitor and codeproject on the other. Works great :) Todd Smith
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I would like to know from any people that use multiple monitors for one PC what they find works well and any tips for making the best use of dual monitors
If you have two PCs, then synergy http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ gives you almost the same thing. Useful for laptop people. Thats my solution, and it is almost like having dual monitors on one machine if you share your drives correctly. However I always had to remember that the right monitor compiled faster than the left. How things are setup depends on the job. Sometimes it is debugger on one screen, code on the other. Othertimes it is code on one, reference window on the other. Sometimes it is code project one one, and code on the other. Sometimes it is code on one, headers on the other. Sometimes there is code and headers all over the place with no logical placement. In short: there are some times where a window works better on one than the other. (games in particular) The rest of the time it is what works for you.