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Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers

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Re: Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers

#201

Post by fhd2 »

Not sure about "no longer worrying about that pesky 80 column limit"...

For once, I have an ultra wide monitor, and having 1-2 files of code, a terminal and a space for testing and research all next to each other is quite great.

Furthermore, I'm probably getting too old, but I find line length limits really helpful for readability: When you start to wrap those long lines, it kinda makes you think about introducing some temporary constants, extracting logic into a separate function, Not nesting conditions and loops too deeply... Maybe I'm just so very used to it, but I'm a fan, regardless of monitor size.

Re: Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers

#202

Post by andyjpb »

jbverschoor wrote: post #129
kbenson wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I ran multiple monitors I often designated one as my "communication" display, which got email/chat on it, and probably browser as well (for reference material), while the other was the active work one with the current task (usually a few terminals). I found the clearly defines areas for specific tasks was useful. Now I work off a 40" 4k TV without magnification (I'm close to it), and I try to do similar but it's…

I used to have 2 pcs, connected over synergy, for the same reason. The best part is that your cmd-tab / application switcher is local to that screen. Still looking for a similar solution on 1 laptop with 2 screens.

I've longed for a window manager that can assign different virtual desktops to different screens. Of course, there are compositing, scaling and resolution issues to overcome, but it'd be really neat to have a palette of virtual desktops that could be called up on whichever monitor was most convenient.

...and it'd make screen mirroring during presentations a breeze!

Re: Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers

#203

Post by rbanffy »

layer8 wrote: post #181
rbanffy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huawei sells a decent 4K 4:3 monitor. It’s a bit on the expensive side for the 28” size, but the form factor is quite good. An alternative is sourcing 1200x1600 monitors on eBay.

The Huawei MateView is 3:2, not 4:3.

That’s kind of close enough.

I liked the square one from Eizo, but it seems nobody else did.

Re: Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers

#204

Post by BoorishBears »

I've owned almost every size and resolution of monitor to come out in the last few years (I don't know why, call it a hobby)

- Right now I've settled for the XDR. Less screen real estate, but text clarity is great, and no weird Dual DP issues like the 8k Ultrafine before it

- Second place is Dell's 40 inch "5k" ultrawide, the U4021QW. Good text clarity and plenty of vertical space (more than 34"/49" 21:9)

- 3rd place goes to two 4k 16:9 28" monitors on fully adjustable gas spring arms (I use gas spring arms for all my monitors, including the XDR)

- 4th place is a tie...

Either 38" 1600p ultrawides (gives you more vertical space the 1440p panels in 34" and 49" models) if you care about vertical space (ie. you wish we had 3:2 monitors)

or "5k" 34" ultrawides. Only two models were ever released with this panel, but you can still find them for sale new: PS341WU and 34WK95U

- 5th place is 34" and 49" 1440p ultrawides. These are the most popular ironically, but once you've used any of the above it's like going back to the 1366×768 days when it comes to looking at text all day.

Also curved monitors are a plague. Yes people get the impression that it's making it easier to use a wide screen, and it's a very intuitive conclusion to draw. But actually picture one of these monitors flattened out and you realize there's a minimal change in width.

If you're doing color sensitive work you probably don't want a curve due to the distortion, and if you're not then the slight color shift from a flat panel is not something you'll ever notice or care about, and in exchange for that you'll likely get much much better panel uniformity (curved monitors are much more prone to BLB due to the complex internal mounting setup).

Re: Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers

#205

Post by tbrock »

What is extremely annoying to me is that all these companies make ultra wide monitors without increasing the horizontal resolution. Why would anyone want an ultra-WIDE monitor with exactly the same resolution as a 4k monitor. The T E X T L O O K S S T R E T C H E D!

They need to increase the horizontal resolution when they increase the width of the monitor to add value over a regular shape monitor with the same resolution.

Are there any 32"+ ultrawide screens that have higher horizontal resolution?

Re: Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers

#206

Post by funkymike »

DennisP wrote: post #30
ASalazarMX wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tall monitors must be hard on the neck if you frequently need to see the top half of it. The ergonomic recommendation is keeping the monitors at eye level. How do you deal with that?

What I'd like: an editor with multiple tiled windows side by side, filling up a wide monitor, all showing the same text threaded through it. Line n at the bottom of one puts line n+1 at the top of the window to the right of it. Scrolling in one window scrolls them all. (Of course you could optionally split it up differently to see multiple files.)

You can do this in vim with the scrollbind option. You could create a simple script to set up the windows and get the views lined up to the correct line numbers. The one caveat is that enabling line wrapping will screw it up.

    :windo set nowrap
    :vsp
    ctrl-w ctrl-w ctrl-d ctrl-d
    :vsp
    ctrl-w ctrl-w ctrl-d ctrl-d
    :windo set scrollbind

Re: Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers

#207

Post by jedberg »

can16358p wrote: post #67

Am I the only one (fullstack programmer + designer + hobby photographer) here who's perfectly okay with a single laptop monitor? Maybe it's to do with I love being mobile, maybe it's that I use UI and text very small, but I can perfectly fit either 3 Vscode tabs, or website + PIP video, a few terminals, many views in Sketch or a combination of those in a screen (16" MBP). I'm also okay with working with Photoshop or…

For years I worked on a single 16" laptop screen, because I was constantly on the move. It was fine. Then the pandemic started and I was stuck at home, so I started using an external 27" monitor instead (single monitor) and then I picked up a second 32" monitor.

Now I use 9 desktops across two screens, and it's a lot better. I'm much more productive when I can see everything at once.

I suspect I'll readapt to a single screen as travel picks up again, but I really do enjoy my two big screens.

Re: Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers

#208

Post by jedberg »

LegitShady wrote: post #146
sumtechguy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. At one point I could easily read 4pt fonts. Now everything is a blur.

get glasses?

Wearing glasses for 12 hours a day after never wearing them can be a difficult adjustment to make.

Re: Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers

#209

Post by emeraldd »

can16358p wrote: post #67

Am I the only one (fullstack programmer + designer + hobby photographer) here who's perfectly okay with a single laptop monitor? Maybe it's to do with I love being mobile, maybe it's that I use UI and text very small, but I can perfectly fit either 3 Vscode tabs, or website + PIP video, a few terminals, many views in Sketch or a combination of those in a screen (16" MBP). I'm also okay with working with Photoshop or…

I'd lose a lot of productivity in without the external monitor. I can work without the extra, visible space, but I'll start losing things or having to bounce back and forth between virtual desktops/spaces/etc. A whole lot more. It just slows me down enough to be painful if I have to do anything beyond toy/trivial work.

Re: Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers

#210

Post by jedberg »

dcchambers wrote: post #93

My ideal programming screen is a 1:1 square. Before I got my 4K display I tried using a 24" 1920x1080 monitor in vertical orientation, and found that even though 1080 pixels wide should be enough to render any website fine, some websites (including some pretty big/important websites) started treating my screen as a mobile device screen, hiding many elements and giving me the mobile view/UI. I guess those sites weren'…

Those sites were checking the ratio of width to height of your screen instead of your window. If the height is taller they give you the mobile site. It's annoying. I've seen that before.
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