Comments on: Window Maximizing and Multimonitor Setups Across Platforms

By: Aaron

Aaron — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:47:37 +0000

I’ve used 2 monitors on Macs for years now. Currently using MacBook with menu bar on the external monitor, and palettes (for Adobe software mostly) on the MacBook built-in monitor. On the whole it works well, but I agree that the green button should fill the screen, and it’s annoying that at 10.4.9 the OS still doesn’t guarantee this. A simple key shortcut (cmd-click) would be appreciated. And another shortcut to maximize a given window on the >opposite< monitor. So that you can easily compare 2 PDFs, for example, without manually dragging and then maximizing one of them. Hope Apple’s listening.

By: David

David — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:56:56 +0000

I don’t completely disagree with your assessments of Mac and Windows. I’ve been using dual monitors on Windows for a couple years, and dual monitors on the Mac since ’89 or something, and in some situations having the menu bar on on emonitor is annoying. Honestly, I find the location of the task bar on Windows aggrivating too (but not as much as the menu bar can be).

What I’ve generally found I end up doing, on all platforms, is having a monitor where my main work is, and one where my secondary work is (often this is more status information, reference, etc). in both cases I also arrange things so a sweep of my mouse from either screen gets me to the menu or start bar (meaning, I tend to put those on the bigger screen, so I wo’nt hit edges when I sweep).

I’ll also add that Dave C is right. There’s no maximize button on the mac. Never has been, and I doubt there ever will be. There’s just an “expand to fit as best as possible”

By: Preston L. Bannister

Preston L. Bannister — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:35:13 +0000

Getting dual panels working and performant on Ubuntu depends largely on the display drivers. The ATI drivers are horrible – wasted days trying to get these to work. The NVidia drivers are pretty good – re-installed Ubuntu and had dual 24″ panels working with the NVidia drivers in short order.

Need to someday write up a deconstruction of old GUI habits carried over to that no longer make sense. Among other things – menubars made a lot of sense back in 1984, but not so much on today’s large screens.

By: Adam Gray

Adam Gray — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 00:59:24 +0000

Once it is setup Linux running Gnome or KDE has a far superiour GUI especialy if you are willing to fiddle for about half an hour. Since when has Window had the concept of workspaces (execpt with extra programs). Thats where you start. Then add Beryl and bingo you have a desktop cube – or you could just goto settings – preferences – enable desktop effects. My only annoyance is that many linux games such as Nexius do not respect the fact that I have two moniters and do not want the game strectched accross two screen. – Pretty simple to get around though – Turn off the other screen press ctrl + alt + backspace and log back in and play the game.

Linux isn’t ready for noobs on the desktop but if you are tech savy have a crack because once it’s up and running its Kick’s Windows and Macs ass.

By: jan

jan — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 09:16:26 +0000

Dual monitor hassle has already been taken care of!!!

(screenshots dual monitor setup GUI)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DisplayConfigGTK

(packages for ubuntu)
http://glatzor.de/filesink/displayconfig/feisty/

quote: “…It provides a failsafe mode that will ensure that users never have to manually configure their graphics hardware settings from the command line. If Xorg fails to start,the failsafe mode will initiate with minimalistic settings, low resolution, and a limited number of colors. The failsafe mode also automatically runs Ubuntu’s new GTK-based display configuration utility so that users can easily test various display settings and choose a configuration that will work properly with their hardware.”

By: Ralf Papenkordt

Ralf Papenkordt — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 22:36:09 +0000

You can use DejaMenu (http://homepage.mac.com/khsu/DejaMenu/DejaMenu.html) on a Mac to get the application menu as a pop up menu on a monitor without the top menu bar.

By: Jason Rogers

Jason Rogers — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:42:29 +0000

Just another comment to say here’s another user of Linux (at work, Ubuntu Breezy Badger) on a dual monitor set-up. Getting it to work only took about 10 minutes. Typically speaking if you are using Linux on a dual monitor set-up you probably already know how to get around Linux and figure out how to do things if you don’t already know how to do them…

Also, +1 to Jerome Lacoste’s comments…

By: Cay Horstmann

Cay Horstmann — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 13:48:11 +0000

I use Ubuntu every day and am for the most part a happy camper. It’s fast, has a powerful shell, is easy to automate, and I can do almost everything with the keyboard. But monitor support is indeed wretched, and it shouldn’t be. My pet peeve is that I cannot easily switch to an external monitor or projector with my laptop. My old laptop had an ATI card and they provided a working driver, but now I have some cheap graphics from Intel, and it took an annoying hour of futzing to get it to work the way I want to. Supposedly, all of this will finally be solved with the next X.org. (To put that annoying hour in perspective, I spent several annoying hours on the Windows partition getting rid of the crapware that slowed Vista to glacial speed.)

By: Jerome Lacoste

Jerome Lacoste — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 14:02:13 +0000

You're right to say that dual monitor is not very well supported in ubuntu Feisty. It's better supported in other distributions such as Fedora. Still it's on its way: see http://useopensource.blogspot.com/2006/12/fedora-beats-ubuntu-dual-monitor.html#comment-8784294027065759786 and http://useopensource.blogspot.com/2006/12/fedora-beats-ubuntu-dual-monitor.html#comment-6515998037278868603 and should be in gutsy or gutsy+1 (as X.org 7.3 might not make it for gutsy). As for Linux being ready for the desktop, it really depends what your desktop needs are... Most of the people I know don't use dual monitors, so...

By: Guy Rixon

Guy Rixon — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 12:36:59 +0000

The single menu-bar is even more of a problem when using a projector with a laptop to illustrate a talk. There are two major design errors.

First, the full-screen mode for the slides etc. goes to the screen with the menu bar; so you have to put the menu-bar on the projector. That’s silly: clearly you want the controls for queuing up media to be on the laptop screen, where you can manipulate them privately, not where the audience are looking.

Second, the default place for the menu bar, and hence the full-screen display, is on the primary monitor by default. That means that slides come up on the laptop screen not the projector. (Yes, I found out how to change this. But I had to dig into the help; it’s not obvious from the UI.)

How anybody could design it that way beats me. It only takes a tiny bit of useability testing to show that it doesn’t work.