Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors

#21

Post by jrockway » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 3:56 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #17

Multiple monitors sure are a drag. This weekend I downgraded my primary monitor from a 32" 4k display to a 27" 1440p display, for the purpose of gaming at 165Hz instead of 60Hz (and wow, what a difference). This has caused several annoying side effects. I used to run my 4k 32" monitor at 125% scaling, and my ancillary 24" 4k monitor at 225%. Everything looked fine, or so I thought. Now my 27" monitor runs at 100%, an…

Oh, and as for the actual utility of multiple monitors, I like them. I use a second monitor off to the side for lower-priority things. At home, music player and Discord. At work I usually have Emacs on my main screen and a terminal on the second screen. If I'm doing a lot with the terminal I'll just move the window over, but most of the time I just need to press up arrow and look at the output for a second, so it works fine. YMMV but I like having multiple monitors. I don't know if there is any productivity improvement, but it's enjoyable nonetheless.

Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors

#22

Post by Lightbody » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 3:58 PM UTC

Another reason for just one monitor: your neck will feel a lot better!

Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors

#23

Post by gknoy » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

corobo wrote: post #10

neivin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiling window managers are your friend

Multiple monitors are your friend

Best of all, multiple monitors play very nicely with both tiling window managers and virtual desktops. :)

Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors

#24

Post by linsomniac » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

Hey, great that a single monitor works for you. It doesn't for me though.

I have 3 monitors and can't imagine going back to one. Different people work differently, but for me I see a significant benefit to being able to glance somewhere to check a job I'm running, e-mail, chat, reference a browser... It reduces the overhead of the context switch, so I can do it and be right back to where I was.

In the past I would change virtual desktops to check e-mail or chat, and once I was in that isolated desktop I would find it much harder to get back. It was better when I was able to set up a hotkey to "switch back to the last virtual desktop I was on".

At the moment I have two 32" displays and a 24" in portrait. I have my terminal sessions on the center 32", 2 browsers on the right 32", and slack and e-mail on the left 24" portrait. I came to this from using a 15" laptop all the time for 15 years.

Caveats: I use i3wm and use keyboard navigation a lot. I'm also a sysadmin, I could easily see programming being different.

Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors

#25

Post by lexicality » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 4:02 PM UTC

Lightbody wrote: post #22

Another reason for just one monitor: your neck will feel a lot better!

Try having one monitor in the centre and the second one off to the side. You'll always be using one monitor as the primary anyway so there's no reason to pretend they're equal.

Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors

#26

Post by kerryritter » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 4:03 PM UTC

I wish I could do single monitor, but I need at least two - one with editor, one with browser for the app/site I'm building. Then preferably one for database admin/documentation/email/chat. Context switching between all that tends to slow me down I feel.

Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors

#27

Post by SippinLean » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 4:03 PM UTC

Alt-tab causes me to lose focus much more quickly than glancing to the left. As a front-end developer I ALWAYS have my text editor, test browser, and Web Inspector open.

Among all tasks, I've found using Web Inspector to be incredibly difficult on a single monitor, especially on websites with deeply nested markup.

Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors

#28

Post by quasse » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 4:07 PM UTC

lexicality wrote: post #20

I disagree heavily - Having a secondary monitor with documentation / work plans on it is enormously useful as you can glance at it without having to do anything more special than turn your head. In fact, I would go so far as to say that three monitors is optimum since you can have your code on one, the output of your code (continuous tests/hot reload/etc) on another and documentation on the last allowing you to see a…

I don't program in Android as my main focus at work but have been doing to quite a bit lately and I have to say thank god for my three monitors.

The Android ecosystem is such that you are going to want documentation up at all times, and alt-tabbing back and forth would drive me insane. My monitor layout ends up like this:

[emulator][docs][code]

and it works really well. That picture of the author's virtual desktops looks like a nightmare to me. I like using window snapping to put one thing per monitor and having it be big and static from that point on. No context switching, no keeping a mental index of which virtual desktop has that damn Gradle documentation hidden on it.

Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors

#29

Post by hinkley » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 4:10 PM UTC

I remember when two monitors were a new thing that someone did a productivity study and found that getting 50% more real estate (i.e., half again as many pixels or a few more inches diagonal) on your single monitor was as effective as having a second monitor the same size as your old one.

Personally, I thought having multiple wide aspect ratio monitors was a complete waste. I don't turn my head that far when I work normally. But my latest trick, adapted from a coworker, is to put the second monitor in portrait mode. My CI build window is the top 2/3rds of the screen, and the log tail for the code I'm running or the build script I'm running are the bottom 2/3rds, which leaves enough visible in each window to discern when the other needs my attention. I'm getting a lot more use out of that monitor now.

Re: Why I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors

#30

Post by _ph_ » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 4:11 PM UTC

The main reason for multiple monitor setups would be, that they were cheaper than getting a single larger screen. But the general reduction in screen prices and the new class of ultra-wide screens gives alternative options to get a lot of desktop real estate. The only reason I sometimes prefer my dual-screen setup is, that when I have a full-screen application (vmware in my case) running on one screen, the other would give me additional desktop space like for reference documentation. I would never consider putting a normal windowed desktop application into full-screen mode. As my typical work requires to use multi-windowed applications, I like my desktop to be as large as possible.