I just moved up to the greatness which is dual displays and was wondering what else can I do with them. I already got this whold watching a movie, playing on the internet, and messaging thing going pretty good but cant find a way to take advantage of it in games. So what do you use your second, third, fourth, ect. displays for?
I personally find it best for work- I have a Word document loaded on one monitor with the research on another. Haven't found anything amazingly cool to do yet, but it's much more practical and productive, especially with ultramon running . <A88>
Left screen is for normal use, right screen is used for winamp + im clients + ventrilo. This way I can keep an eye on what music is playing and who's online while I work or play games.
I have my Dell 20inch widescreen on it's highest stance, with my 17inch widescreen MacBook Pro underneath - screens stacked rather than side by side. Seems far better than side by side. Top for web design and work, bottom for iTunes, MSN, Finder, downloads etc. Means I can easily swap the top for my Xbox 360 without losing track of music or open chat windows.
CAD on left monitor, data sheets etc on right side monitor - very useful, much quicker than switching programs side monitor is a 21" CRT (games @ some ungodly resolution ), but is about 18" deep so sits in the corner.
if im ingame a usually have IRC / teamspeak on the other screen so I can see who is trying to get hold of me/whos just given spoken in game. Also use it for winamp, etc.
Linux on the left, Windows (screen1) in the middle, Windows (screen2) on the right. Used for random crap, random crap, and irc/msn/winamp respectively.
Tv tuner on one monitor, while working on the other. Or for some big screen hogging programs like Adobe After Effects i have them split up (timeline on one monitor, toolbar and viewing screen on the other). I find multiple monitors are great for doing work.
When i run 2 monitors i use the smaller one for all my tools/layers/other windows in photoshop and use the main display for the image im working on. I wish i could run dual monitors all the time. Edit: Mookboy: SWEET AVARAR!!! V-Dub for life!
I tend to move everything around between the screens. In theory the right (primary screen) does games with IRC/MSN on the other. Then i run videos on the left and IRC/MSN on the right to prevent mIRC burning its image on the screens (noticed faint/non-permanant ghosting in the past). Everything else moves around at random depending on where it was opened first . Things like Premiere only use the primary screen, and irritatingly wont expand over 2 screens with ultramon or otherwsie. But nm, means i can put video.msn/irc on the other screen. Ive also got samurize running on the left screen on the right of the desktop and a toolbar of random apps down the left of the same screen. As for finding good uses for them, ive found you cna get two pages in word/acrobat displayed at a readable level on each screen, handy for researching stuff from docs and pdfs. Besides that, its just decadense
Often times, small code windows scattered over my 24" with a browser and whatnot on the 15" WS laptop of the MBP. Really varies by what I'm doing though. Sometimes I'll do a three-wide Word (good for long papers, etc) on the big display with some research info on the laptop. On rare occasion, it'll be two different OSes by means of Parallels; once I pulled off the trifecta of OS X, WinXP and Ubuntu Linux by tossing a second laptop into the mix. More often than not though, I'll keep stuff I need open on the laptop but only rarely actually need to see on the external, and then it'll be displaying either a different computer or a console thanks to its plethora of inputs. It REALLY depends on what I'm doing at the time. It's even weirder than normal for me, since my space is not at all optimal, I only have one of my flat panels here, I effectively have to juggle my laptop between a portable and a DTR (which means always unplugging the external display), and I had to convert my fileserver to a makeshift gaming machine, which is now effectively a non-issue thanks to Zelda. It's about eight times worse thanks to the fact that my laptop only has two USB ports and my only hub is in the monitor, but I often need to juggle devices between it and my fileserver/gaming PC, and since I'm OCD about cables (or try to be...) it means that I have to crawl under the desk all the time to swap things or flip the monitor 90º to see the bottom ports. Gotta say though... even though 24" really isn't enough for me anymore (I already know I'll end up with a pair of 30"s at some point, but certainly not in the near future), it's a godsend to be able to run my various fullscreen apps (various content editors for the most part... Aperture, Photoshop, Fission, various video stuff) and be able to easily drag in source material from the second display. I think my biggest problem is that there's still no good way to line up monitors with two different pixel pitches (this should be a really easy fix at least for the mouse... click at the top of display1 on display2; click at the bottom of display2 on display1, scale appropriately. or something to that effect), especially since I'm often adjusting the height of my secondary. So...uhh...yeah. No idea if that went anywhere near the original question. If Apple would just release a Mac Mini with dual DVI, I'd be all set. But no... they can't do that. I'm not splashing out over $2k for a Mac Pro, even if I'd enjoy the quad-core love. Basically, whatever app needs the most space goes on the big external display, and anything that supplements it tends to go on the "main" laptop display. And when that doesn't work, I just hit F11 and Exposé works its magic.
"Central" screen = main useage. Webbrowser, coding, word etc. Right monitor = MSN/reference stuff, other browsers etc. Move things between the monitors quite a bit depends what the main focus is at the time. ie Might have WoW open on main screen, with a dvd/video playing on the other. Duallies *** tho, so much nicer than single!
Code: [U]Left[/U] [U]Right[/U] Game msn / iTunes websites msn / iTunes photoshop tutorials premier tutorials you get the idea
the usual, Left msn music videos mainf or programs and games, Or i just stretch Solid edge accross both and open lots of sub windows so i can have the customers spec on the left then the drawing which im working-on on the main screen always usefull. Morgan.
I have 3 19" Dells in a row hooked up to a Matrox TripleHead2Go box, which in turn is KVMd to 2 machines. I generally use some specific work applications on two of the screens, and have the third for my report
at work: laptop screen: source info (excel, web etc) external: cad/takeoff/design software at home: laptop screen: iChat/iTunes/finder external: dvd/iTunes video/quicktime or web/game
At work... top far left 30" - Enterprise Controlstation full network view bottom far left 30" - Veritas NetBackup admin console, ECS application desktop left 21" - 3-4 Enterprise Controlstaion filtered network views middle 21" - HP ServiceDesk, Internet Explorer top 21" (above middle) - IT/Opera Message Browser left 21" - Outlook, Mainframe TSO session, SSH windows, HP Omniback Admin console x2 far left 19" - 2x Mainframe console sessions At home... Far left 15" - server (synergy'd to main PC) left 19" - MSN, skype (if its open), photoshop palletes middle 22" - games, firefox, photoshop, office etc (not all at the same time obviously) right 17" - windows explorer x2 (usually on a networked drive and a local drive), another firefox if necessary though im getting another 19" for home and getting rid of the 17" and the 15", to be symmetrical and all (I don't have a monitor fetish, honest )
Now you're just showing off... Me, I've got a 20" for all my Windows stuff, and a ickle little 5" for system stats...
