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Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

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Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#231

Post by ArmandGrillet »

aden1ne wrote: post #112

My main issue with multiple displays on Mac is that the dock sometimes suddenly switches display. Sometimes this doesn't happen for weeks, other times it happens multiple times a day. When this happens, it tends to move the dock from the internal display to the external display, and the existing window on the external display suddenly gets smaller. The only resolution I've found when this occurs is unplugging and re-…

You can resolve this by putting the cursor in the center of the display where you want the dock to appear then move the cursor to the bottom of the display at an average speed.

Works everytime for me but this is also the reason why the dock moves to the wrong display!

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#232

Post by AlanYx »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #98
JodieBenitez wrote: post #3

I can't stand multiple displays, mac or not, they just distract me. I want one big display, something like 27" or 32". To each their own.

Same here. I've gotten used to just having my laptop screen (14" mbp m1). It's fine. Having more screens is just confusing/distracting to me. The only time I use external screens is when presenting and I just put them in mirror mode. Mostly using windows side by side is not a thing for me either. I look at one application at the time and I just give it the full screen. The sole exception to this seems to be finder wi…

>The sensible default of just making the menu bar background black isn't there...

This may not apply to you since you mention using dark mode, but for those who use light mode, there is a hidden system preference you can use to force only the menu bar and dock to being dark. Easiest way to set this is with TinkerTool.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#234

Post by itsoktocry »

Every time people bring up how superior Macs are (and their hardware is great) I bring up the fact that being forced to use MacOS is a negative. It's sufficient, but not great. Both Windows and Linux are equally good, just with warts in different places.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#235

Post by devilkin »

I've experienced many of these things on a regular basis, on my work supplied MB Pro (M1 and Intel)

* multiscreen: I use my macbook, a widescreen, and a 24" in portrait mode. Window management /sucks/ on mac. It either doesn't remember where apps go (even just between sleep), it loses track of them, and the fact that you can just partly drag a window onto a separate screen can cause it to "vanish" until you finally figure out it's that tiny edge

* full screen - you fullscreen one app, and macos decides that the other two monitors should go black. eh, no?

* MST. Please. For fcks sake.

Plugging in two distinct monitors at the same time made my Intel macs (plural) freak out. Screen 1 would activate, screen two, one would go off, two would blink, etc.

* I don't want the dock to move all around. So I disabled that. But then, the menubar is also stuck on just the main screen.... WHY!?

* non-existant window-management. Rectangle solves a lot, but really?

I've got more gripes with this thing... probably mostly to do because I want to use accessories which aren't blessed by Apple. Like my Poly Voyager 2 headset. Every time I switch that thing on or off, apple music starts up. Why? Because Apple. Nowhere to switch that off, so I'm using the NoTunez app to immediately kill Apple Music again if it starts.

The constant mixed use of home-end-pageup-pagedown (most apps it acts properly - you know, like every other os handles it, and some apple specific apps suddenly end is "end of document" instead of the end of the line.

The list goes on. I guess if you're deeply embedded in the apple ecosystem with their gear, it works, but once you go outside of that, it's .. shite.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#236

Post by itsoktocry »

lordnacho wrote: post #85
jstsch wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is indeed the main problem. If you have two screens of the same model, the OS is unable to see which is which. This also goes for many USB devices (such as webcams that randomly swap).

Ok but then it could at least say "there is a screen plugged into port 1, and the same serial in port 2, so I'll draw the things that were on port 1 there again"? That way it would be up to the user to plug the same screen into the same port, which I think I could handle. Plus I can see the serials are actually different, so just going by serials should work. Or it should just tell you "hey buddy, you've got two scre…

>Ok but then it could at least say "there is a screen plugged into port 1, and the same serial in port 2, so I'll draw the things that were on port 1 there again"?

Yes, this is the strange thing. It's not like it's guessing which monitor is which, it's always swapped.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#237

Post by itsoktocry »

Toutouxc wrote: post #135
OJFord wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like the touchpad and mouse 'scroll direction' setting being tied together. It makes sense for Apple mice/external trackpad (which all have a touch surface), so sod the 100% of other far more prevalent mice that use a scroll wheel, for which 'natural scroll' is absurdly unnatural (but disable it, and lose it on the built-in trackpad too).

> scroll wheel, for which 'natural scroll' is absurdly unnatural IMO there is no objective reason why turning a plastic wheel towards or away from the screen should be the natural choice for scrolling down a webpage. It's just something that some people are used to. My head sees scrolling on a touchpad, the Magic Mouse and a wheeled mouse as the same thing — and I even set my Windows gaming machine so that the mouse…

>IMO there is no objective reason why turning a plastic wheel towards or away from the screen should be the natural choice for scrolling down a webpage. It's just something that some people are used to.

Hard disagree. I move the mousewheel down to go down the page, and up to go up. That's natural.

Swiping around my desktop screens and apps like it's a tablet makes no sense. It's the very first thing I turn off on all Macs.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#238

Post by lhamil64 »

I haven't used Macs much, but I've also had issues with multi-monitor window placement on Windows and Linux too. I use a Windows laptop at work with a single external display. For some reason, if I unplug the display to go to a meeting, when I reconnect it all my windows are still on the laptop screen, and new windows even open on the laptop screen despite the external being primary. I've resorted to just disabling the laptop screen unless I need it to screen share in a meeting.

At home I use Linux Mint and also went back to one monitor. It seems like the entire desktop is just spanned across both displays, so Windows seemed to always open on the left-most monitor. Maybe it's better now, it's been a while since I tried it. But I'm also visually impaired and use the screen magnifier, which is awful on multiple monitors. If you set the mouse to always be in the center, it centers it across all monitors, not your primary monitor so your cursor is between the two monitors. On Windows, the magnifier app centers the cursor on whatever monitor it's currently on, which I think is much more intuitive. I've noticed this same behavior across multiple DEs (Cinnamon/Gnome & KDE) so I suspect it's a deeper issue. I've thought about making some code contributions to improve the usability but I just haven't spent the time to get a dev environment set up.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#239

Post by indymike »

gmac wrote: post #94

I think multiple display support has gone backwards on the Mac, in a way that’s representative of the platform and rather dispiriting. I remember 20 years ago a colleague pointing out that Apple had put a lot of work in to allow windows to seamlessly cross different monitors, even if the PPI and colour depth were different. At some point between then and now, they ripped that out: windows are now only ever shown on o…

> I think multiple display support has gone backwards on the Mac, in a way that’s representative of the platform and rather dispiriting.

I think things have gotten worse as Apple silicon chips introduced limitations in how many displays can be plugged in, and MacOS has tried to have a better "maximized window" experience... Instead you get a new, unnecessary entire new windowing mode. You still need something like the awesome Magnet app have sane control of windows. And multidisplay is just a hot mess.

Meanwhile over on my LG Gram running KDE Plasma, things are getting better. I've got four screens all different resoulutions and sizes working just fine with different zoom levels. Wayland + Plasma seems to work really really well... which is shocking and amazing.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#240

Post by indymike »

DonHopkins wrote: post #142
gmac wrote: post #94

I think multiple display support has gone backwards on the Mac, in a way that’s representative of the platform and rather dispiriting. I remember 20 years ago a colleague pointing out that Apple had put a lot of work in to allow windows to seamlessly cross different monitors, even if the PPI and colour depth were different. At some point between then and now, they ripped that out: windows are now only ever shown on o…

Back in the 80's my late friend Hugh Daniel showed off that feature on his Mac by plugging as many monitors side by side into it as he could, then he ran a "ruler" desk accessory and stretched it out horizontally across all the monitors, to measure how wide the were all combined. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Daniel He also brilliantly took an old monitor and removed the cathode ray tube, and then took a hires p…

I need a 4k version of this now.
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