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Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

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Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#241

Post by dr-smooth »

spurgu wrote: post #212

This is weird. I used external monitors at the office back in 2017-19 and I thought it was magical how the windows resized/positioned themselves when I plugged in the monitors. I didn't use external monitors at home though (just laptop screen) - maybe that confuses things, if you have two separate external display setups?

I felt the same way back in 2017.

I don't have the same strong opinions of many on this board about having problems now, but it does kind of seem like I have more problems now than I did back then.

I use an external monitor at home, a portable one when traveling, and external monitors at the office.

I have seen things that were pretty annoying, like all my windows getting stuck on the laptop display, even with the external monitor connected. Having to move 15 instances of VS Code to the external monitor is really obnoxious. It happens to me about once every 6-8 weeks. Not quite annoying enough for me to go find and learn some window management application.

Not sure exactly what triggers this. It seems like it's related to powering up and connecting the external displays. Or even the temporary loss of connection (bad USB cable) between them seems like it can make it happen.

I think back in 2017, I was only using external displays at work. So the laptop didn't have 4 different configurations to contend with like it does now (no external display, home external display, travel external display, and work external displays)

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#242

Post by skunkworker »

gmac wrote: post #102
lloeki wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> windows are now only ever shown on one display Untrue :D System Preferences > Desktop & Dock > Mission Control > Displays have separate Spaces > Off So why is it not allowing windows to overlap two displays when that setting is on? Because when it's on a) you can swap spaces independently on each screen and b) you can move individual spaces across displays. If you had overlapping windows, swapping Spaces or rearran…

Oh: glad to hear that, if true. Thanks.

It is true. I’ve been doing multi monitor support on a M1/M3 pro for years now. Triple external monitors (2 off a dock and 1 displaylink). The older amd graphics cards took 10-15s to detect external monitors while the apple silicon chips take 1s.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#243

Post by kriops »

itsoktocry wrote: post #234

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.

MacBooks are at least ok+ for every conceivable regular office worker (including programmers) use case. Windows and Linux have their respective strengths, but their main issue is being almost completely unusable in certain use cases.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#244

Post by jerf »

lloeki wrote: post #96
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…

> windows are now only ever shown on one display Untrue :D System Preferences > Desktop & Dock > Mission Control > Displays have separate Spaces > Off So why is it not allowing windows to overlap two displays when that setting is on? Because when it's on a) you can swap spaces independently on each screen and b) you can move individual spaces across displays. If you had overlapping windows, swapping Spaces or rearran…

I think a nontrivial part of the problem here is that if you sit down to write out all the requirements, there really isn't a great solution. If you need to A: be able to use multiple spaces conveniently B: be able to drop back to one space as needed (laptop usage scenarios) C: try to remember previous locations of windows and D: generally work like a standard desktop, you've already hit some fundamental issues. I think the people complaining are probably in a situation where they've always got their particular monitor setup, but the exact same code still has to be able to handle all the situations while maintaining the standard desktop layout metaphors... which the observant will note had decades of development before multiple monitors were a serious concern, so there is a lot of promises that were made before that was a thing that have to try to be maintained. Plus you have to remember the window manager must decide where all windows go right now; it has no idea that the second monitor was just a bit slow to come up and will be around in another 2 or 3 seconds, it has no idea that you're just unplugging it to check the connection, etc.

I think there just isn't a solution to this problem. You can move the mess from that part of the carpet to the other part, but someone's going to be annoyed, possibly everyone.

On a tiling window manager I fairly seamlessly can drop multiple monitors in or out, because the paradigm drops a lot of promises the standard desktop makes, so consequently it can more fluidly move into situations that don't make sense for the standard desktop paradigm. But that's not a practical solution for an OS to deploy in 2024.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#245

Post by morteify »

SavageBeast wrote: post #18

This seems to indicate that most devs at Apple are using a single, large display rather than multi setup. Otherwise, the devs themselves would have been frustrated into fixing it. I tried it for awhile but I just prefer a single myself. Command/Tab to switch around is just great and I don't have to turn my head hundreds of times a day.

I can relate to that. I tried a 4K dual monitor side-by-side setup some time ago (on a Windows PC), but my initial excitement at the available screen real estate was soon replaced by fatigue from eye and neck strain. Turning my head several times a day and forcing my eyes to refocus on a new target left me sore after a day's work.

Command/Tab is now my preferred way too. I've also come to really like Stage Manager on Mac and I don't feel like I need another screen anymore.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#246

Post by idle_zealot »

OJFord wrote: post #109
JR1427 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company has enforced frequent updates of browsers and other software set up, so we are relaunching apps very often, and this drives me crazy. It feels like someone is walking over to your desk and moving everything around, just to annoy you.

yabai is the closest you can get to i3/sway like tiling window management on macOS, and its config allows fixing an app always to open in a certain workspace.

I used yabai for a while, but its general bugginess (losing windows, mishandling native tabs, SIP disable required for some functionality) eventually convinced me to try Aerospace. I have been very happy with how stable it is in comparison, though it's still not quite as nice as actual sway/i3.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#247

Post by ffsm8 »

cjk2 wrote: post #219
ffsm8 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you're plainly stating what we've established here too: you either don't have reading comprehension or didn't read it. The arch of the CPU doesn't matter. I have the same issue on my M1 MacBook Pro 14" I really don't care wherever windows does it worse or better either... so your other comment didn't add anything to the situation, really.

Insulting much?

If you feel insulted by this observation then you should probably introspect a little and reread the comment you've initially responded to tomorrow, because your initial response really was misguided.

Furthermore: I didn't insult you as such. I simply stated the only options I could determine from your behavior. Literally, what other option is there? Your point is still "it works for me with my single monitor setup" as a response to "this doesn't work with a multi monitor setup".

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#248

Post by speleding »

zeroz wrote: post #173

After some frustration with shifted windows, usually even after a short break and monitor standby, I tried several solutions. Even tools that promised to save the fixed position were not satisfactory. My preferred go-to solution is now to define sets of window positions in a script for different work situations and simply call them up via keyboard shortcut. No third party tools needed, just works with AppleScript. Th…

I may lose karma for saying this, but the only way I've found to make multi-monitor work is to go to Energy Saver > Prevent automatic sleeping, and then I never turn my Mac Studio off.

Honestly, I've tried a bunch of things, including different monitor setups and apps that intend to put everything back in their place, but none of it was reliable, windows would still get shuffled around. My time is just worth more than the power consumption of an idling Mac. My monitors do get sleep, and even that sometimes rearranges the windows, but it works like 99% of the time. Why is this so hard to get right Apple?

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#249

Post by phone8675309 »

baq wrote: post #191
monsieurbanana wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> General OS slowness and instability and clunky design not so much. I can't tell whether you're talking about Windows or Mac here

My WindowServer is sitting at 30% CPU and 15% GPU on an M1 MacBook Pro and I have no idea why. I reboot the Mac more often than I rebooted my dogshit HP enterprise laptop. MacOS is just a bad OS. It's good if you only ever use the MacBook as a laptop, but the moment you hook it up to a useful setup, it becomes a drag.

Are you running an external display and is it DisplayLink?

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#250

Post by NBJack »

fx1994 wrote: post #183
monsieurbanana wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> General OS slowness and instability and clunky design not so much. I can't tell whether you're talking about Windows or Mac here

Windows are not bad if you have control over them. But in corp env, you don't and the force updates, AV, FW, extra AV scans and other monitoring shit so even with 32 GB of RAM, fast SSD and latest i7 PC would start to act like it's Win98. That's why I switch to Mac M2, zero corporate shit and total control so it works great.

To be fair, that's only in part because Apple doesn't seem to have the level of device management Windows offers.

Many of the solutions I've seen in the corp environment try to make up for this with some frankly janky solutions. Apple seems to be slowly improving that, but give it time.

But at the end of the day, the crappy performance hits I've seen on both kinds kf devices are generally shitty monitoring solutions and restrictions that neither support natively.

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