[HN Gopher] Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers
___________________________________________________________________
Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers
Author : ghuntley
Score : 518 points
Date : 2021-12-02 15:41 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sprocketfox.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (sprocketfox.io)
| mgraczyk wrote:
| This is interesting but the author considers only one degree of
| freedom, "roll".
|
| Equally important are "pitch" and "yaw".
|
| "pitch" is necessary to accommodate another kind of rotation,
| known in HCI as "slouch".
|
| "yaw" is important because sometimes your code is so elegant and
| impressive, that you need people walking by to see it more than
| you need to see it yourself. You use yaw to rotate your monitor
| away, toward the hallway or window.
| glitchc wrote:
| Could stretch the "yaw" into a "yawn" which is the typical
| response when you showcase your elegant and impressive code to
| family and friends.
| GEBBL wrote:
| One of the funniest paragraphs I have read here!
| cogburnd02 wrote:
| Author could just write a script that takes slope input from a
| Wiimote attached to the back of the monitor & sets xrandr
| accordingly.
|
| 3DOF?
| lamontcg wrote:
| 6DOF, get velocity in there.
| utopcell wrote:
| doesn't cover the case where the desk itself is sloped.
| tomxor wrote:
| Or the building is sloped, which is tricky because it's not
| clear whether it's best to align to the room or gravity.
|
| ...My last office was a "listed" building, in both the
| nautical and historic sense.
| [deleted]
| kevmo314 wrote:
| Extra points if your curved ultrawide is so wide that putting it
| in portrait has it curving above your head.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I fantasize about someone commercializing the deeply curved
| slot machine screens as general purpose monitors.
| floren wrote:
| I like portrait mode, but a modern monitor is _too tall_ when in
| portrait mode. I just want a couple 4:3 screens so I can rotate
| one (or both) into 3:4 ratio.
| rbanffy wrote:
| 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.
| layer8 wrote:
| The Huawei MateView is 3:2, not 4:3.
| rbanffy wrote:
| That's kind of close enough.
|
| I liked the square one from Eizo, but it seems nobody else
| did.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| 22 degrees, also known as the rotation of kings. Because it's
| majestic.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28794933
|
| I posted this a while ago, I enjoy using a single monitor over
| multiple ones, multiple ones made sense when screen resolution
| was way worst.
| FpUser wrote:
| I used to have multiple 4K monitors hooked up. No more. Ended up
| with single large 4K monitor in landscape mode. Portrait mode
| makes for way too much head moving. Unless on the move never use
| laptop screen. My laptops are closed and hooked up to the same
| large 4K monitors.
| aimor wrote:
| Not sure why, when every flagship phone has rounded corners, we
| don't all use circular monitors. It completely solves the
| rotation issue, and is stylish too.
| [deleted]
| intrasight wrote:
| 25 years ago I worked on the air traffic control system
| modernization. We were using Sony CRTs that were square 2Kx2K
| with hardware anti-aliasing. The were drop dead gorgeous. I
| assumed that 25 years forward (today) that everyone would be able
| to buy such monitors below $1000 (they were like $10K in 1996
| dollars).
|
| Why no square monitors? Hollywood?
| layer8 wrote:
| There is a square monitor from Eizo:
| https://www.eizoglobal.com/products/flexscan/ev2730q/
| intrasight wrote:
| That's pretty nice. Sold out from what I can see. Next: how
| to add that hardware anti-aliasing. I assume that GPUs can do
| that to your desktop.
| layer8 wrote:
| Ah, that's unfortunate. Well, the model is already almost 7
| years old.
|
| You could try to obtain the SQ2825 instead, but that's not
| a consumer device and probably expensive:
| https://www.eizoglobal.com/products/atc/sq2825/
| intrasight wrote:
| Interesting. I can buy a panel and diy kit for this
| monitor on AliExpress. Hmm.
|
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32955608335.html
| yehudalouis wrote:
| Sort of unrelated:
|
| The picture of the monitor rotated 22 degrees contains a sticky
| note with what appears to be some sort of token/key/password.
| helb wrote:
| it's base64-encoded "hunter2"
| ZiiS wrote:
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hunter2 (They even base64ed it)
| fragile_frogs wrote:
| I got myself the 49" Ultra-wide monitor from Dell [1] and it's a
| fantastic product. I was never really a fan of using two monitors
| so having two 27" monitors in one screen is really amazing and it
| becomes even better if you combine it with FanzyZones [2] to
| manage the window layout.
|
| 1) https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-
| ultrasharp-49-curv...
|
| 2) https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/powertoys/fancyzone...
| bo1024 wrote:
| No xkcd link?
|
| https://xkcd.com/2119/
| IncRnd wrote:
| Is that a password written on the Purple postit that's glued to
| the monitor?
| 0des wrote:
| > 22 degrees
|
| This angers me on a spiritual level. Where do your notifications
| spawn?
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| Notifications should spawn in /dev/null otherwise they
| interrupt flow.
| 6c696e7578 wrote:
| They're there to make you work slower, perfect concentration
| breaker. Of course, if you're not busy they're fine as your
| attention may be needed, but they should definitely be off by
| default.
| undoware wrote:
| Now, I don't like to judge the moral character of display
| positioning, but after carefully considering the .png of the
| preferred solution of this article's author, I am forced to
| question the nature of my reality.
|
| Excellent work. :)
| nimbius wrote:
| fools begone.
|
| The ideal monitor rotation --the one that secures the most favour
| on HN-- is a slow 1-2 centimetre per second continuous orbit
| about the office in 2 dimensions on a tracked rail. This in turn
| ensures that one may not only glorify their monitors rotation,
| but also glorify their practice of standing whilst working
| instead of sitting. The movement --which rotates as well amongst
| its own Z axis-- also promotes good evangelical proselytization
| of the many woes of desk sitting, for example, that ten million
| people die per second for not standing at the lectern as a
| fourteenth century pork belly clearinghouse clerk.
|
| At days end then the monitor should be guided into a velvet sack,
| and stored gently atop a layer of old Haskell parchments that it
| may succor inspiration at the next stand-up which is conducted
| standing, as our christ lord intended.
| bluGill wrote:
| Don't forget those us of old school guys. Everything should be
| displayed on paper. Changing fonts means physically changing
| the type. As everyone knows ed is the ultimate editor!
|
| Now get off my lawn.
| bio_end_io_t wrote:
| one screen comms, one screen work, comes in at #2
| throwaway4good wrote:
| This calls for a motorized solution!
| wruza wrote:
| After reading this thread, things I [maybe] miss in desktop
| windows ui.
|
| 1. Different per-window dpi. Ctrl-scroll on a window title to
| zoom in/out at ~hw level. Apps shouldn't care.
|
| 1a. Zoom in/out the entire desktop this way (ctrl-scroll on show
| desktop button).
|
| 2. OSX-like fit-size maximization instead of fullscreen.
|
| 2a. Alt-lbtn to move, alt-rbtn to resize, everywhere in a window.
|
| 3. Hotkey specific windows by alt-shift-digit, focus/raise by
| alt-digit.
|
| 4. Focus follows mouse, doesn't raise.
|
| 4a. Make active windows _fucking stand out_ again. And create a
| post-commit hook to autofire an idiot who tries to revert that.
|
| 5. Separate displays. I'd try have 2+ displays again if they were
| really separate and not continuous. Having a part of a window to
| stick out, misclicking into the edge, and windows popping up on a
| random display is just stupid. I want ~sort of~ two logins of the
| same user into one system. Switch by alt-esc.
|
| 6. Stick everything to everything and/or grid by 5mm to help my
| perfectionism.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > OSX-like fit-size maximization instead of fullscreen.
|
| What I wouldn't give for apps to actually take advantage of
| this. Even most of Apple's own apps just treat the zoom button
| like an "expand window to size of desktop" button.
| echelon wrote:
| Once VR headsets gain large FOV and high DPI, working in VR will
| be ideal and an improvement over any sort of monitor.
|
| You can have 360+ degrees of scroll (beyond a full circle, you
| continue to wind into virtual space), spatial gestures to
| organize and manipulate your workspace.
|
| It'll be like physical trades where workers knoll out their
| workspaces. We'll finally be able to do the same without clunky,
| insufficient windowing systems.
|
| UI and 3D tools won't be limited to flat planes anymore, which
| will enable us to work with our hands.
|
| I'm incredibly excited for this tech to land. I think it'll
| introduce an order of magnitude increase in productivity once it
| begins to mature.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| > spatial gestures to organize and manipulate your workspace
|
| These are things that sounds cool on paper, but become
| impractical when you do them hundreds of times a day. For
| common tasks, users gravitate to the least amount of effort.
| It's why almost everyone knows `ctrl + s` instead of using the
| `file -> save` menu. Engineers in particular are prescient
| about their shortcuts (especially VIM users...)
|
| Gestural interfaces will take off when they are the most
| efficient method for completing a task.
| jmull wrote:
| I'm not so sure.
|
| To work effectively and without friction, you want everything
| close at hand.
|
| I think even the current rectangular workspaces that monitors
| provide are getting a little too big for this. As the workspace
| gets bigger, the organizational burden increases, as does the
| effort to navigate through it -- even if that effort is mostly
| non-physical.
|
| I'm thinking we actually need better ways to focus, where the
| things we need for an extended activity -- and only those
| things -- are readily available in a simple workspace. I'm
| afraid a 3D VR/AR workspace will lead to me questing about,
| looking for that file or tool that is maybe 1440 degrees
| leftward.
| criddell wrote:
| > working in VR will be ideal and an improvement over any sort
| of monitor
|
| For me, that's definitely not true. I have no interest in
| wearing a headset for more than a few minutes at a time. I also
| like that I can turn my head and look out the window at trees,
| clouds or birds or rain. It's how I think.
|
| > I think it'll introduce an order of magnitude increase in
| productivity once it begins to mature.
|
| I guess that's a good thing, but it's not terribly high on my
| list of things I want to work on to improve my life.
| pjs_ wrote:
| Thinking about a monitor with a 1024:1 aspect ratio which only
| displays a single long line of text
| smhinsey wrote:
| Back in the day, my setup was one 30" in the middle in landscape
| and a pair of 21" (or whatever that was that had the right
| dimensions) on the sides in portrait mode. The big screen was the
| primary and the other two were for reference. I still think this
| is the best setup. Right now I have 2 large curved displays and
| probably double the visible pixels but it's not as productive.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Clearly there's a market for S-shaped monitors. You get the
| benefits of two landscape sections, two portrait sections, a
| central 45d section, and two small 45d sections, useful for
| putting notifications in.
|
| Kidding aside, I just have 2 gaming monitors on either side of my
| MBP, in landscape. A screen for monitoring prod, a comms screen,
| and a code screen. When needed I slide out a coding window to
| another monitor.
|
| I also use the extra desktops for my calendar and my task list.
| Three-fingers slide one way to see my calendar in maximized
| Safari, the other way to look at tasks in maximized Trello.
|
| About vertical coding, I tend to think that if you need to go
| vertical to understand the code, it's already too long. Note I
| don't mean it must fit in landscape, I'm saying if it doesn't AND
| you need to see it in vertical for it to make sense, that's a
| smell. YMMV.
| ziml77 wrote:
| My setup in the office is a screen dedicated to Outlook, a
| screen for my code, and a screen for documentation and chat.
|
| I know some people in the office who made one or both of the
| side screens vertical, but that doesn't work for me. Vertical
| means I'm tilting my head or my eyes up and down which doesn't
| feel great. Also horizontal side monitors are in my peripheral
| vision, vertical side monitors extend too far up to be in my
| peripheral vision.
|
| I wouldn't want my center monitor to be vertical because then I
| couldn't easily put code side-by-side. I'd need to take over
| one of the side monitors which then would mean looking between
| them requires looking off-center and with a gap from the
| bezels.
| function_seven wrote:
| I miss that.
|
| When I was at work, I had a trio of old 20" (1680 x 1050,
| IIRC) screens. They were 2005FPW Dells that had a--for the
| time--beautiful IPS display. I got them used for around $80
| apiece. Email on the left, documentation and browsing on the
| right, and code or database windows in the center.
|
| Now in my home office it's a pair of 24" 1920x1200 displays.
| They're great, but I miss the centered "main" screen, and the
| larger sizes are wasted on the peripheries anyway.
| Causality1 wrote:
| I don't understand why 3:2 and 16:10 have taken over the mobile
| space but if I want one for my desktop my choices are 1920x1200
| or a thirty inch, thousand dollar monstrosity with bad response
| times.
| jonfw wrote:
| What's the thousand dollar monstrosity?
|
| The only decent resolution taller monitor I'm aware of is the
| huawei mateview, which isn't available in the US
| kreetx wrote:
| Perhaps the Dell 30" LCD UP3017A?
| Causality1 wrote:
| There are some 30 and 32 inch 2560x1600 monitors, such as
| from Dell, but they're mostly geared toward offices and
| artists and have terrible input latency and response times.
| kreetx wrote:
| My sentiment exactly.
|
| 27" is a bit too tall vertically, but 26" or 25" would be ideal
| (with a resolution larger than 1920x1200).
| wruza wrote:
| You can always buy a inch+10% 4k 16:9 display and just set a
| 3:2, 16:10 or whatever resolution with cropping edges, e.g.
| 3456x2160 or 3240x2160 (check if your vcard can do that). It
| may be hard psychologically, but it's so less expensive.
| Causality1 wrote:
| I tried that, but it makes fullscreen applications like games
| behave very oddly and inconsistently and required constant
| fiddling.
| void-pointer wrote:
| If you're in Europe, or are willing to attempt to import, the
| Huawei MateView is a brilliant 3:2 4K panel.
| misterbwong wrote:
| Why not something like the LG 27UK500-B on Amazon? 4K with
| 3:2 aspect ratio at ~$350
| empiricus wrote:
| What do you mean 3:2? :)
| donatj wrote:
| Everything I can find on the LG 27UK500-B says it's 16:9
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=LG+27UK500-B+aspect+ratio&o
| q...
| zzt123 wrote:
| Bad response times plague the mobile space too. Just look at
| the new MBP with its 120hz display that has >40ms latency. But
| Mac displays, though looking gorgeous, have always had latency
| that was heavily perceptible.
|
| Is there even a mainstream desktop display that has anywhere
| near the latency of Macs?
| pshc wrote:
| >40ms latency is insane if true. Got a source?
| ewagsjr wrote:
| I feel like any linter would complain about line length before
| you needed to worry about line length on the monitor lol..but hey
| if it works for you!
| kraftman wrote:
| I've tried a lot of different setups over the years at work and
| at home, with laptops, 3 monitors, thin monitors, vertical
| monitors, etc.
|
| I eventually settled on one 43 inch 4k monitor. I have it divided
| into 3 columns and 2 rows, and have everything I'm working on
| open at once so I don't have to tab between things, with the core
| work in center and the reference work either side.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| Besides the straight-up superiority of the 22 degree angle, the
| monitor setup that works best varies greatly from one person to
| the next. It's interesting how big the difference is. My favorite
| so far has been two 32" 4K IPS panels, flat!, plus a 15" laptop
| AND a tablet sidecar display occasionally. I appreciate the
| difference more clearly after I had a colleage who saw much of
| the same patterns in code and software architecture as I did -
| very similar end result of thought processes - but they were
| happy as a clam with just a 13" laptop and nothing else. It was
| so obvious that their mind just works differently from mine. My
| setup only served as a distraction to them and theirs to me.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| I run 7 monitors. I've got a 2x3 grid of 24" monitors on a stand,
| and then a 27" widescreen standing tall beside it for code or a
| long terminal.
|
| It's fantastic, though I could stand to have another row above.
| It's nice rarely having to switch windows - everything I need and
| use is right in front of me.
| 0des wrote:
| That's cool! Any chance you can post a pic of your desk? I'd
| love to see this
| teejmya wrote:
| If anyone else enjoys pictures of these setups as much as I
| do, you may enjoy browsing this subreddit:
| https://reddpics.com/r/ultimatebattlestation
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| You'll have to excuse the mess :) https://imgur.com/a/5uTm7VB
|
| Also obviously I hid all the proprietary stuff.
| 0des wrote:
| woah thats bonkers! What do you do with all that real
| estate?
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| Pretty much the standard tools that most people have open
| all the time I guess. I just want to see them all all the
| time without having to constantly switch windows or hide
| the thing I'm working on.
|
| Music, messenger, Discord, Slack, 2 or 3 instances of my
| IDE, source control UI, a terminal or three,
| documentation for the thing I'm working on, notepad++
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| Dude. If you get the third row PLEASE take another
| picture and share it.
|
| Your set up is magnificent.
| jedberg wrote:
| Those last two on the right look like they're basically
| behind you. How do you use those?
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| They are about 45 degrees to the right of center. I turn
| my head or swivel my chair.
| staindk wrote:
| My neck hurts just reading this
| rout39574 wrote:
| Fun! First encounter with a non-daytrader who's got more than
| my 6: I use 4 portrait on the desktop, and 2 landscape on a
| stand, held above them.
|
| What window manager do you use? I'm Xmonad.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| Windows :D
|
| That's an interesting configuration! Also my first encounter
| with someone else who understands the value of screen space.
|
| Do you also like to keep all your things out in the open
| rather than tucked away inside cupboards and drawers?
| tyleo wrote:
| I have 6:
|
| * 27" LCD x 4
|
| * 1 iPad (maybe this is cheating a little)
|
| * 1 Laptop
|
| I've disabled the laptop though. The LCDs are in a 2x2 array
| all landscape. I use the iPad mostly for meetings.
| m_ke wrote:
| I've been using a cheap SEIKI 4K TV for the past 6 years but
| recently moved my desk next to a window and the reflection on the
| glossy finish has made it hard to use. I'm looking for either a
| 32" 4K IPS monitor or a better TV to replace it but the options
| don't seem that great. Would love to get some recommendations on
| a good monitor or TV.
|
| Right now I'm considering
| https://www.amazon.com/LG-32UN880-B-UltraFine-Compatibility-...
| but I just missed the deal that costco had on it ($500) so might
| wait to see the price drop again because it's been on sale for
| that price a few times this year.
| henvic wrote:
| If your desk is on a slight slope fix your desk. LOL
|
| I bet Objective-C developers would love the long lines of using
| it set to 22 degrees, though :)
| renewiltord wrote:
| Absolutely entertaining post. I loved it.
|
| Haha the sticky notes and photos. Quality entertainment.
| macinjosh wrote:
| My preference is an "H" shape setup using 3 2560x1440 monitors.
| Middle screen is landscape with a portrait screen on each side.
| Portrait is great for reading long code, slack, email threads.
| Landscape monitor is used for everything else.
| MoSattler wrote:
| Why not just use two regular monitors then?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Why do we limit ourselves to right angle boxes? Why don't we have
| "GUI blobs" floating around our screens? Hipsters would be
| thrilled.
| Fred27 wrote:
| I can't see that being practical. My setup for the last few years
| has been 2 ordinary monitors - one portrait and one landscape.
| I'll often read on the portrait and code on the landscape. It
| works for me. Give it a try.
| vbo wrote:
| I second this. A portrait monitor does wonders for coding (for
| me); My office setup consists of two portrait monitors plus my
| laptop screen in the middle and this works very well when
| multiple repos are open at the same time. I tend not to mess
| about with the windows displayed on the vertical monitors so I
| always know where to look if I need to change something (ie,
| backend on the left, frontend on the right). I've been planning
| to look into tiling window managers to see if I can optimize
| this further but it might be going a bit too far.
| tapvt wrote:
| I use two moderately sized monitors, in portrait mode, as well
| as a larger monitor, in landscape between.
|
| code - browse, etc - tail logs
| briamn wrote:
| lol
| totoglazer wrote:
| One almost wonders if practicality wasn't the objective of the
| exercise. Almost.
| politician wrote:
| Truly a missed opportunity to demo Ski Free running on the
| last orientation.
| ziddoap wrote:
| With the only listed advantage being "longest line length" and
| disadvantage being "webcam starts sliding away", I'm shocked
| that you think a 22 degree rotation isn't practical.
| cabirum wrote:
| Its ~23.2 deg for 21:9 ratio, not 22deg. For a more common 16:9,
| the angle is 29deg. (lambda w, h: math.acos(w /
| math.sqrt(w**2 + h**2)) * 180 / math.pi)(16, 9)
| bigdict wrote:
| I noticed that as well and typed arcsin
| (3/sqrt(9+49))
|
| into WolframAlpha.
|
| It's clear in the picture that the corners of the monitor are
| not on the same level.
|
| But now I'm wondering what led to the error...
| user-the-name wrote:
| I don't think anyone posting here has actually read the linked
| article to the end.
| gboss wrote:
| I prefer to work with a single large external monitor. If my
| device is a laptop I keep it in clamshell mode when attached to
| an external monitor. I find switching applications with keyboard
| shortcuts and focusing on one thing at a time has improved my
| productivity. Using two or more monitors made it so easy for me
| to get distracted. To each their own though.
| kbenson wrote:
| 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 a lot more haphazard.
| I find that once you have a wall of pixels in front of you,
| putting stuff in areas helps, but it's also nice to just throw
| stuff around and treat it as a actual physical desktop (as it's
| actually about the size now).
|
| The thing to keep in mind is that as screens get larger,
| maximizing to fill the whole screen makes less and less sense.
| I can't even see all my screen at once. I could place it
| farther back and scale it up, but why would I just by a smaller
| screen and keep it closer then? I _want_ those pixels. I run
| all my browser windows at about a quarter screen size, and have
| that app scaled up to 125% (but not all apps), and that almost
| never has a problem with a site, and I have other info I care
| about quick saccade away.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| 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.
| andyjpb wrote:
| 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!
| scooble wrote:
| I don't think you can have the same desktop on both
| screens, but otherwise herbstluftwm allows this.
|
| Also monitors are virtual so you can have multiple
| virtual monitors on one physical monitor. I want to one
| day try this with a 4K tv to have multiple monitor
| layouts.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| I basically want to have real multi user. I want my
| dev/project to be an isolated user, also bc of software
| supply chain security. I want to map it to a (virtual)
| screen. I want to be able to share the clipboard.
|
| I think the closest is running multiple OS X/Linux in VMs
| nezirus wrote:
| Sway has multiseat, maybe it would be a match for your
| use-case, check manual for sway-input.
| opan wrote:
| Maybe I'm not understanding what you want exactly, but it
| sounds like what i3 and Sway already do. Workspaces are
| created as needed and are specific to that monitor, so if
| workspace 3 is on the right monitor, you can jump to it
| with super-3 even if you're on the left monitor. You'd be
| looking at workspace 3 on the right monitor plus another
| workspace like 1 or 2 on the left. Each monitor displays
| a separate workspace which can be changed without
| affecting the other.
|
| You can also define rules in the config so that certain
| programs will open in certain workspaces every time, and
| you can move the whole workspace to the other monitor
| (not a default keybind iirc) if desired. Good in a
| portrait+landscape monitor setup for if you need your
| browser to be wider for a little bit.
| andyjpb wrote:
| Being able to select desktops/workspaces per screen is
| half the solution.
|
| The other half is allowing the selection to come from a
| pool of desktops/workspaces common to all screens. i.e.
| the opposite of what i3 and Sway do.
|
| So given desktops/workspaces a, b and c and screens 1 and
| 2, the following combinations are possible:
|
| 1: a; 2: b
|
| 1: a; 2: a
|
| 1: c; 2: a
|
| ...
| kbenson wrote:
| I used to do stuff like this back in the day with Fvwm2,
| but less at the desktop level and more at the application
| level. You can set applications (windows really, and by
| title or id) to either be sticky to desktop or screen,
| etc. I had my mail client follow me no matter the virtual
| desktop I was on, but let other windows be anchored to
| the virtual desktop.
|
| Honestly, I often miss Fvwm2 and my config in its power
| and simplicity, but Windows long ago became "good enough"
| and since the heavy apps I really care about (mail
| client, browser, maybe an IDE if I'm not using vim for
| the project) are cross platform (which they all are), as
| long as there's a good SSH client I'm good, and Windows
| Terminal plus built in OpenSSH shipped with windows works
| fairly well.
| topaz0 wrote:
| You can absolutely do this in i3 or sway. There aren't
| default keybindings for doing it, but it is easy to set
| up your own. I set $mod+equals to 'move workspace to
| output up' in i3 (or something like that -- I'm not on
| that machine to check). This works for me since I set up
| my external display to be above the laptop screen, so it
| effectively means 'move this workspace to the other
| output'. You could also specify a specific output to move
| to, or change what the direction is.
| icambron wrote:
| That's not quite what's being asked for. I think it's
| more like super+1 for "move workspace 1 to the current
| monitor". I haven't quite figured out how to do that in
| sway, although I'm pretty new with it.
| simpss wrote:
| i3* does that. You specify a set of workspaces and their
| screens. Personally I go a step further and set programs
| to specific workspaces as well.
|
| This works really nice with a docked/undocked setup. When
| the additional monitors are disconnected, all workspaces
| move to the main(laptop) display.
|
| eg, I have workspaces 1,2,5,9 on monitor 1 and screens
| 3,4,6,7,8,10 on monitor 2. When undocked all 10
| workspaces move to the laptop screen.
|
| * https://i3wm.org
| voipspear wrote:
| Check out Total Spaces
| (https://totalspaces.binaryage.com/) for Mac. I use this
| with dual monitors and love that each monitor can have
| its own virtual desktop.
|
| I have my left monitor as a communications hub. It has
| only one virtual screen. I also keep my browser there.
|
| I have a 3x3 grid on the right hand monitor.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| That won't work. I just want separation. Between
| applications. I can run multiple instances of chrome, but
| the is has trouble figuring out where to put what.
|
| I've tried routing VNC though an ssh tunnel (doesn't
| accept connection to localhost), but it's all pretty
| shit.
|
| And I really don't like carrying 2 MacBooks around
| convery wrote:
| Can recommend Nvidias nView software for partitioning the
| screen into work-areas. Then maximizing, by default dragging
| the window to a border of a work-area, but is programmable so
| you can select a default area, just fills the area. Only
| downside is that you need to patch a JNZ in their DLL where
| they check if you have a Quadro card and quit.
| thefunnyman wrote:
| Windows 11 has some nice window management features like
| this built in, but I've found the windows power toys fancy
| zones to be even better. This works for all graphics cards.
| torginus wrote:
| I've found this to be the optimum as well. The fact that you
| can have 2 1080p monitors worth of display height stacked on
| top of each other is invaluable when writing code/reading
| docs. For the other half of the monitor I can usually split
| it up between a browser/target app I'm debugging and
| something else, which usually varies by the actual use-case.
| ed_at_work wrote:
| It's funny how our brains work, eh? I find I'm the complete
| opposite. I need two monitors so things are right there in my
| face. I get distracted switching tabs. Thanks a lot ADHD.
| yourabstraction wrote:
| I agree, I've also moved back to a single monitor. Less
| distraction, and for me also less neck pain as I keep what I'm
| focusing on straight in front of me, instead of having a
| monitor off to one side.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > Using two or more monitors made it so easy for me to get
| distracted.
|
| I have a desktop with three monitors and a laptop with one, and
| I don't notice any difference in distractibility. It's a
| discipline problem, not a technical one, and so you should
| solve it on a personal level and not a technical one.
|
| I mean, think about it. If you "unlock" the ability to use
| multiple monitors at once without getting distracted, "it's
| free real estate" - you have more space to work with, and
| there's empirical evidence to suggest that that results in
| increased productivity. Programming involves a lot of
| consulting documentation and using multiple tools at once -
| it's very amenable to multiple monitors (as opposed to, say,
| writing a novel).
| discreditable wrote:
| Same here. In the circumstances where I need multiple things up
| at once I use Windows' window tiling features to arrange things
| as I need. They even made this functionality better in Windows
| 11. I'm a big proponent of using one good monitor over any
| number of other monitors.
|
| One thing that cracks me up is how many of my users request
| multiple monitor setups, but look at the keyboard while they
| type.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I use multiple monitors, look at the keyboard to type, and
| drive barefoot. 3 things that have no bearing on each other.
| wruza wrote:
| I tried powertoys fancy zones (from MS itself) and never
| looked back. Can't tell if it will work with 11. My layout is
| 4 overlapping vertical full-height panes, so I can split the
| screen in half, or around 2:3 either way. E.g. my browser is
| usually x=0, w=3/5, and my vim is x=1/2, w=1/2. This way I
| can see the changes in 1500+-width but slightly overlapped by
| an editor to feel comfortable with line widths and their left
| margin.
|
| What stands out in fancy zones is that these areas _do not_
| have to tile each other and may overlap. Positioning windows
| in there is also very UX. I couldn't find anything close
| enough in linux world (well, one may always program i3 or
| awesome, but it's beyond my scope of interest).
|
| I don't get why MS doesn't just build it into windows, since
| it's their own, free tool.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| Windows 11 has a cut down version of fancy zones built in.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > powertoys fancy zones
|
| Second FanzyZones. I've remapped the keys I could to mimic
| i3, and the only thing keeping it from "perfect" is
| keyboard shortcuts to control splitting/moving/resizing.
| You can toggle between pre-configured fixed zones using the
| keyboard, which is mostly good enough.
|
| PowerToys also has a ton of other useful tools like a color
| picker, bulk file rename, and keyboard remapping (useful
| when using Synergy between Windows/MacOS). Highly
| recommend.
| pletnes wrote:
| I miss i3 on win - do you have a how-to for that? I use
| powertoys but only to tweak window layout a bit.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| I just remapped the super-pagedn/up keys for window
| switching (only next/prev instead of hjkl). Otherwise I'm
| using i3 on Linux, and use Synergy to move between
| Windows, MacOS, and Linux so it helps to have as much
| between the three environments consistent.
| neoberg wrote:
| I went from 3 large monitors to 1 large & laptop screen to only
| a laptop screen. It's enough.
| comeonseriously wrote:
| Definitely agree. Multiple monitors distract.
| soheil wrote:
| I agree I just like to add for development it'd be nice to at
| least a terminal window and an editor open side by side. In
| case of web dev the browser pointing to localhost and the
| editor side by side. I don't understand why an "ideal monitor
| for programmers" would need to have space for Twitter.
| mgreenleaf wrote:
| I work with the KDE virtual desktops grid with a 3x2
| arrangement and wrap around on a 32" curved screen. I've found
| it very useful to put the same windows in the same grid squares
| and have hotkeys to easily go between. I know exactly the
| keystrokes ahead of time to get to the window I want and don't
| have to move my neck to get there. I can tile them, since I've
| got plenty of space on the one large screen, but usually the 6
| virtual desktops are good enough. I've tried multiple monitors
| before, but couldn't get into it.
| [deleted]
| rectang wrote:
| I use a laptop and I make heavy use of workspaces. I generally
| don't use an external monitor at all. However, when working at
| a desk, I use an external keyboard and trackpad, and put the
| laptop on a stand.
|
| I dislike plugging into a monitor because it I hate the chaos
| of resizing everything. When I'm on the large monitor I
| unconsciously expand things; then when I switch back everything
| is on top of everything else or expanded beyond the window
| edges or reflowed or what have you.
|
| I say this having worked with applications where you truly need
| an external monitor: image editing (where you put all your
| extra palettes on the extra monitor, and DAWs, where timeline
| and mixer views take up a full monitor each. Programming isn't
| like that.
| lukaszkups wrote:
| Totally this. I've been using Linux for so long time that I
| haven't realised Windows has that feature as well - when I've
| learned about this and WSL has been introduced I've switched
| immediately :)
| arendtio wrote:
| I use two 27" 4k Monitors in landscape mode arranged
| vertically. That way I have one primary monitor just in front
| of me and some extra space when I need it.
|
| Having the secondary screen above the primary means you won't
| have neck pain from looking to the one side all the time. In
| addition, it is quite relaxing to lean back and watch a
| presentation/video on the secondary screen.
|
| The biggest downside is the position of a webcam. I placed it
| between the monitors with a 3D printed holder. However, that is
| certainly not an optimal solution.
| volfied wrote:
| That's exactly what i do as well, i just gave up on the
| bottom inch of my top monitor with the webcam in the way
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Looking up will be a bigger problem for neck and will strain
| the eyes more.
|
| The upper edge of the display should be on eye level: humans
| are much more comfortable looking down than up.
| fassssst wrote:
| Yep, single 38" 3840x1600 ultrawide or 43" 4K TV for me. With a
| small 14" USB-C portable touch monitor as needed for testing
| touch and pen input.
| tombert wrote:
| I am exactly the same way. I have a 50" 4k TV in my basement
| that exists solely as a monitor for my laptop(s). TVs have the
| advantage of being ridiculously cheap, and there's no law
| saying that you can't just plug into the HDMI port and use it
| as a monitor. The refresh-rate is so-so, but since all I don't
| really play games, it's not a problem.
|
| Having a 50" TV lets me sit pretty far away from the screen and
| also gives me plenty of room to put a million applications next
| to each other which (at least for me) helps me avoid being
| distracted. I also have a lot of issues reading small text [1],
| so having a big screen allows me to make the text gigantic
| while not sacrificing a ton of screen real estate.
|
| It's honestly great; if I ever am forced to work in an office
| again, I'm going to insist that the company purchase me the
| equipment for a similar setup.
|
| [1] I'm reasonably certain that I'm not dyslexic, but I do find
| that reading off a screen is substantially easier for me when I
| use extremely big text. This is part of the reason most my book
| reading is either on the Kindle or the large-print vision-
| impaired versions of books.
| Aunche wrote:
| If you want to use a TV as a computer monitor, you should
| make sure that your TV doesn't do chroma subsampling.
| Otherwise text is noticeably off.
| mh- wrote:
| If you haven't, get your vision tested by a good optometrist.
|
| I had an unknown-to-me astigmatism with otherwise perfect
| vision. I hadn't seen an eye doctor in (ever?) so I don't
| know when it started.
|
| I didn't notice I was having the problems you describe until
| I got some corrective lenses to use only when I'm on the
| computer. Blew my mind.
| tombert wrote:
| I wear glasses/contact lenses already, so I get my eyes
| checked regularly. I've had pretty bad eyesight since I was
| nine years old, and an astigmatism in my left eye since I
| was at least nineteen. Theoretically at least, my contact
| lenses correct for it.
|
| I honestly don't think it's a vision issue though; I don't
| have issues identifying the letters, and I don't have
| trouble reading the words or parsing sentences, I seem to
| have a lot of trouble keeping track of which line I'm on
| when I'm reading stuff with relatively small font. When I
| have large font, I don't have this issue, and I can read
| relatively quickly without a ton of issues.
| bluGill wrote:
| I did. He told me that I just have the normal symptoms of
| getting old. I miss my 20s when I could read tiny text on a
| 19inch screen (CRT). Now I magnify everything, 250% really
| messages with a lot of websites, but at least I can read.
| (I'm writing this on a pinebook pro, so the screen is not
| large to begin with)
| prpl wrote:
| I use a 27" 4k monitor, in unscaled mode, but I use zoom
| heavily on macOS (Ctrl+Scroll Wheel) - with some extra scroll
| cruising setup with SteerMouse on my mouse. The lets me reduce
| the pixel to density to that if a much larger screen on-demand
| to help with my eyes a bit.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| The _one thing_ that I dearly miss from OS X going to linux,
| is the 'double tap to zoom on a text container' thing that
| simply doesn't appear to have an equivalent on linux. Being
| able to double tap and zoom up on text when I'm tired after a
| long day is very nice.
| aflat wrote:
| You might want to check out
| https://github.com/jakehilborn/displayplacer which is really
| nice for changing resolutions beyond what macOS lets you do
| using the GUI
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| My biggest pain point with big monitor tiling setups is
| nested/incompatible windowing/tiling management.
|
| for example i often use Pop Shell, VSCode, tmux and firefox. So
| now I have many different layers of windows -
| Pop Shell - Desktop/Monitor 1 - Firefox
| - tab1 - tab2 - Terminal
| - tmux - pane1 - pane2
| - VSCode - tab1 - tab2
| - splitleft - splitright -
| Desktop/Monitor 2
|
| All of these layers are different keybinds and windowing
| systems with no smooth integration. Pop Shell has one way of
| stacking windows into tabs, tmux has another, firefox has
| another. Ideally i want one set of keybinds that can seamlessly
| let me search for a firefox tab or an open editor tab, or move
| a tmux pane into a terminal window into a stacked pop shell
| window. Like one set of controls and UI for all the windowing.
| Currently i think we all are juggling multiple nested paradigms
| and sets of shortcuts for no good reason (besides it being hard
| to implement)
|
| Does anyone have a nice solution for that?
| aasasd wrote:
| The thing that you want was around in the 90s already, and
| it's called multiple windows without tabs.
| mgaunard wrote:
| Three monitors with one central in landscape remains the best
| layout.
| enriquto wrote:
| I have the opposite setup: three monitors but the central one
| is vertical. The central monitor is where the actual fucking
| happens. It only has a glorious 80x80 xterm with a large font.
| bloopernova wrote:
| I've found I like P-L-L
|
| Leftmost monitor is portrait, the other 2 landscape.
|
| Command line and documents on the portrait monitor.
| Editing/browsing in the centre. Mail and Teams on the rightmost
| landscape monitor, with browsing often moved there too.
| mgaunard wrote:
| My workflow is:
|
| - text editor with two columns in the middle
|
| - terminal with two colums on the right, left is git, right
| is build
|
| - terminal on the left for connecting to production,
| investigating things, and manual testing
|
| I also have a web browser (which contains chat and email) in
| the middle that I can swap to, but that means no coding.
|
| I've heard that a lot of people like to have a browser to
| look at documentation at the same time as they code, but I
| haven't really found this useful, in large part because most
| of the code I work with has no documentation (the code itself
| is the documentation).
| bentcorner wrote:
| Only issue with portrait mode is that some monitors have bad
| vertical viewing angles so when they're in portrait it can be
| hard to see if you're off-center even by a little.
| fhd2 wrote:
| 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.
| jeanloolz wrote:
| I feel exactly the same about the column limit (PEP 8 advocates
| for 79 chars). It forces me to organise my code better one line
| at a time, and I'm convinced it makes the reading faster.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Fully agree on column limit. I don't have a hard limit set, but
| when I start to need to scroll horizontally on a file in a
| dual-pane 2560x1440 setup, it forces me to refactor things out
| into dedicated variables and functions, reduce nesting,
| reducing chaining, etc. On an ultrawide I think things would
| quickly get out of hand.
| can16358p wrote:
| 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 sometimes DaVinci
| Resolve or After Effects too.
|
| Honestly I don't understand why so many screens are needed,
| haven't felt any need for more than one in 15+ years (though I've
| always used max possible resolution + very small UI scaling). I
| even don't use multiple desktops.
|
| Not a rant or criticism in any way, just trying to see an actual
| need for multiple (or rotated) monitors.
| chronogram wrote:
| I just don't find laptop monitors very ergonomic. I use a 27"
| 4K screen and put it so far away that 200% scaling is ideal,
| then have the desktop disable the laptop monitor when it's
| plugged in. If I'd have the office space I'd use a 65" TV as a
| monitor and put it many meters away, that's just my preference.
| throw10920 wrote:
| I can upgrade your claim: laptop monitors are _not_
| ergonomic, period.
|
| Laptops force you to place your hands close to your monitor,
| which is really bad ergonomics - either you place the laptop
| low and kill your neck (looking down for long periods of time
| can cause spinal fusion and back problems in your 30's -
| careful with how you hold your cell phone:), or you place
| your laptop at head height and kill your wrists.
|
| If you value your body at all, you'll keep your keyboard and
| display in their appropriate places and well separate from
| each other. Laptops should only be used in case of emergency,
| or while docked.
| syastrov wrote:
| You can also put some books under the laptop and use it as
| a screen while connected to an external keyboard at desk
| height.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I don't think I could use my usual IDEs on a laptop screen for
| too long without going nuts. Even VS Code with its various
| unhidable UI elements is pushing it. For long term laptop usage
| I'd need to be writing code in something like Sublime Text or
| vim where extraneous UI is kept to a bare minimum.
|
| And as others have noted, having a second screen for
| documentation and work chat (which can be the laptop display,
| don't need a second 27") is essential for me.
| emeraldd wrote:
| 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.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| During my wfh phase of the pandemic, I used a laptop
| exclusively without major issue. The one problem that I had was
| working with large pdf engineering drawings and other page
| based layouts. In those cases switching virtual desktops didn't
| come close to being able to glance back and forth between
| different applications. As a workaround for this, I found
| myself using a printer much more than in the office. Once I
| took the time to print the documents, having the traditional
| physical copy was sometimes better than a second monitor, as I
| was able to more easily markup and add comments on documents.
|
| For strict programming this is less of an issue and I've found
| that I can keep the documentation in a split screen without
| issue. Most sites are responsive nowadays which really benefits
| having smaller windows.
| throw10920 wrote:
| "Needed" isn't the right word to use here, because you don't
| really _need_ very much in software development.
|
| Use a non-visual text editor without highlighting, like ed.
| Compile your React by hand. Skip TypeScript, you don't need the
| computer to check your work. /s
|
| Programmers use tools and automation because it makes them more
| efficient, not because they're _needed_ , and I believe that
| having multiple monitors (and larger ones? I'm reading [1]
| right now and it suggests that, which makes sense - if a larger
| fraction of your field of view is consumed by the same monitor,
| that's less effort for your brain to parse stuff you see, and
| fewer distractions; also see [2]) does that. I hypothesize,
| although I haven't been able to find empirical evidence, that
| having multiple windows spread across multiple monitors is
| cognitively superior to alt-tabbing between them.
|
| Additionally, laptop are really bad for you ergonomically. Use
| a small screen if you must, but your back is not going to be
| happy after 5 years of programming on a laptop - I know mine
| isn't.
|
| [1] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA461180.pdf
|
| [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-
| content/uploads/...
| wffurr wrote:
| ed is the standard!
| brandall10 wrote:
| My 45 year old back is just fine after using only laptop
| displays for 9 years now. That said, I am pretty physically
| active and have led a healthy lifestyle since forever. Maybe
| the latter part is key.
| 0xCMP wrote:
| it definitely helps a lot. i have horrible pain using a
| laptop for long periods, but when i was more active it
| really helped with the pain and soreness.
| can16358p wrote:
| I totally agree with ergonomics and back. I try to stay
| active physically, stand and walk a lot, to compensate to
| some extent. So far so good for about 13 years on laptops,
| though I'm relatively young so maybe that's just my body
| tolerating the negative sides.
|
| Though sometimes I put a box on the table and put the laptop
| on top, effectively turning into a standing desk a work a few
| hours like that. It really helps not to be sitting the whole
| day.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| >who's perfectly okay with a single laptop monitor?
|
| I do feel awfully constrained on a laptop monitor. My perfect
| setup is a laptop and 32" 4k monitor. Email and chat live on my
| laptop, split screened, and my ide and terminal or web browser
| live on the big screen.
|
| Honestly? Half of my problem is that window management sucks on
| os x, but IT doesn't feel comfortable with me running linux.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Amethyst helps with window management.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| In the past, I could code using a 10px font size on a laptop.
| Now I'm only 30 and have to use 18px and 22px to be comfortable
| along with a pair of eyeglasses.
|
| My current setup for optimal comfort and productivity is three
| large 4k monitors, one of them rotated.
|
| Accessibility is also a reason for using multiple monitors.
| zzt123 wrote:
| I have a nice monitor setup, but I am now ok on my MBP 16"
| alone, if necessary, when coding ever since I switched my
| coding font to Pragmata Pro for increased horizontal density so
| that I can do side-by-side with comfort.
| WithinReason wrote:
| It's possible to not know what you're missing until you try it.
| whatch wrote:
| With Mac OS 13 inch display was quite comfortable for me
| (MacBook Air 2011). After that I tried 15 inch ubuntu ThinkPad
| and it was a lot less comfortable even when I set up virtual
| workspaces and hot keys for switching between them.
|
| For me MacBook touchpad gestures for managing virtual
| desktops/workspaces is what makes the difference.
| mrisse wrote:
| I'm sure you're not the only one, but I find multiple monitors
| invaluable particularly for front-end work.
|
| I might find myself rapidly switching between framework
| documentation, developer tools, a preview pane, and a similar
| piece of code that I'm using as a template. I'm infinitely
| happier when each switch is an eye movement and not a jarring
| keyboard stroke that redraws the entire screen.
|
| I'm curious if you're unphased by constant cmd-tabbing.
| svachalek wrote:
| It's unfazed but yeah I for one am. Or swiping on the
| trackpad. I've never liked fiddling around with window sizes
| and arrangements, it's easier to just drop everything on a
| full screen and flip around. I do the same on my 27". The
| only thing that's painful is when app developers still think
| drag-and-drop-only is good UX.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| I tried a huge "wraparound" dell screen and after 3 months I
| never got used to turning my head: I kept centering a window
| that was roughly 4:3 aspect ratio, just enough to fit 80
| columns of text and a sidebar in VSCode/Sublime, or a typical
| browser session.
|
| The biggest problem I had was switching between laptop screen
| and giant monitor. It sucked, I would constantly have to fix
| the desktop whenever I went to a conference room and returned
| to my desk.
|
| I think if you work in exactly one desk, and simply need
| auxilliary screens that you don't look at frequently, big
| monitor or multi-monitor helps, but I don't know what situation
| would call for that when you can just swipe to a new desktop.
| lgeorget wrote:
| When doing web development, I usually need the webpage +
| browser console open on one screen, and IDE on the other. I
| don't see how you can test all resolutions while keeping your
| code on screen otherwise.
|
| And when working on tricky pieces of software or technology I'm
| not so familiar with, I find it convenient to have the
| documentation on one screen, and the IDE on the other.
|
| Of course, YMMV.
| shaan7 wrote:
| Yep, I can relate to why you find it curious, I do too, from
| the other end of the spectrum.
|
| I, for one, feel _very_ unproductive with a laptop. Personally
| for me I think the reason is lack of a mouse. For a long time
| people told me its because I was not using a MacBook (and hence
| its touchpad), but I tried that for ~5 years too and it didn't
| make much of a difference.
|
| I guess at the end when I'm using a laptop it feels like I'm
| "converging" or "constraining" my body (eyes, hand
| coordination) into the laptop. In contrast, connecting to a
| dock with a full size keyboard, mouse and monitor (1) makes my
| body feel more stretched and relaxed. While doing this, I
| rarely use my laptop (I might even just close the lid, if I
| weren't lazy).
|
| This is to the point where I will decline to work if I am not
| allowed to use a monitor+keyboard+mouse setup.
| anthony_romeo wrote:
| Agree. For me, I always preferred the 'nub' present on some
| laptop models over the trackpad (despite their sad tendency
| to wear and drift over time).
| xwdv wrote:
| Nope. I have actually found that the less monitor space I have
| the more efficient I am forced to be.
|
| I work in vim and often have multiple tmux panes. Sometimes I
| can literally be writing code in a pane that's only a handful
| of lines tall.
| rout39574 wrote:
| 'Needed' is too strong a term. I function OK on a single screen
| laptop... But I've got a second screen in my laptop bag for
| when I'm going to be sedentary for several hours. I work in
| 6x10 font on my emacs at my main workstations, so I'm
| moderately small text. I stopped using 5x7 some years ago. But
| somewhere in there, you start using mental effort to resolve
| the smaller features.
|
| The big reason I prefer more real estate is that it's
| desperately more mentally efficient to e.g. trace through
| multiple levels of abstraction with your eyes, than with eyes
| plus fingers plus reorient on the new desktop configuration.
|
| Just having "the usual" fullscreen editor setup on one screen,
| and "the usual" browser or mail setup on the other is a huge
| improvement.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| No, you're not alone. I tend to get lost in a screen as large
| as the 27" iMac I used for a few years. I usually ended up
| keeping my windows small and sticking them somewhere in the
| middle of the screen. For work (IT admin) I have a Surface Pro
| with a 10.5" screen docked to a 24" monitor at my desk, but I
| tend to only use the docked monitor for remote desktop or
| documentation. I often end up just ignoring the big screen and
| working right on the Surface's tiny screen.
|
| At home (programming, hobby graphics/illustration)I use a 15"
| ThinkPad and have never felt the need to add another display.
| It's nice to have the option for some workflows but the
| reduction in mobility is a definite trade-off. (It's hard to
| use a second screen on the couch, etc.)
| [deleted]
| stevbov wrote:
| I had this problem when I first got a 30" monitor - I was
| constantly losing my mouse cursor, it took forever to move
| over to things, etc. To solve it I wrote a program for
| storing and restoring mouse cursor positions (along with
| focusing the app under it) and it really helped.
|
| It was nice being able to have multiple windows visible at
| once when I was doing things, and to be able to switch
| between them quickly. Mobility was basically not a problem
| since the mouse instantly moved to the location I expected it
| to.
|
| Nowadays I mostly use the keyboard and just use standard
| hotkeys to switch the app, mostly because I've been too lazy
| to see if my program still works.
| wruza wrote:
| Nope, me too. I tried 2+ monitors and it is so distracting +
| you have to literally rotate your head, and then there is a
| window auto-positioning issue (mswin "helpfully" tries to show
| dialogs/etc on an empty screen). Extended mouse movement is
| also an issue.
|
| I prefer to tile/overlap windows with fancy zones and to switch
| between apps by alt-tab. Virtual desktops may be helpful, but
| I'm really fine with just one desktop and many windows. Conemu
| builtin tiling helps with fullstack tracing. 2k or 4k, 27" with
| a 3d mount is ideal. The diagonal really depends on how close
| you are, and how much ppi it has (angular size/resolution).
|
| I don't understand 3+-monitor guys, it feels like hax0r
| overcompensating sort of.
| beebmam wrote:
| I used to feel this way, and then I got old
| panzagl wrote:
| And monitor aspect ratios got shitty.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Same. At one point I could _easily_ read 4pt fonts. Now
| everything is a blur.
| LegitShady wrote:
| get glasses?
| jedberg wrote:
| Wearing glasses for 12 hours a day after never wearing
| them can be a difficult adjustment to make.
| pxc wrote:
| Wearing glasses for 12 hours a day after just wearing
| contacts most of the time for a few months can be
| jarring. I always forget how tiny it makes everything
| look!
| LegitShady wrote:
| an easier adjustment than not being able to see.
| jedberg wrote:
| But it's not the only option. Another option is a bigger
| screen with bigger fonts. And that's a lot easier to
| adjust to than glasses. I know because I tried glasses
| first and then went to a bigger monitor.
| rectang wrote:
| Glasses which focus at your computer distance (which
| varies by personal preference; measure it and take that
| number to your optometrist) help with presbyopia.
|
| However, there are many other eye ailments which tend to
| appear later in life and which glasses alone cannot
| correct: cataracts, macular degeneration, corneal
| dystrophies, etc. Some are treatable through other means
| such as surgery.
| LegitShady wrote:
| The majority of people who lose visual accuity as they
| age don't get macular degeneration or cataracts during
| their working years, they just need reading glasses.
|
| It's a bit like saying 'my head hurts' and someone says
| 'take some tylenol' and you say 'some people have flesh
| eating brain viruses or prion diseases'.
|
| You're not technically wrong but those aren't the things
| that affect most people complaining about font size.
| rectang wrote:
| I agree with you that most people only need reading
| glasses -- or more precisely computer glasses, which are
| typically set to focus at 20-24 inches rather than 16
| inches as is common for reading glasses.
|
| However, I think you are understating the problems posed
| by other conditions. The prevalence of cataracts by age
| 64 is in the neighborhood of 15-20%.
|
| https://www.nei.nih.gov/learn-about-eye-health/outreach-
| camp...
|
| It's a good bet there are some people reading this who
| have been treated for cataracts.
|
| > _you say 'some people have flesh eating brain viruses
| or prion diseases'._
|
| Dismissive attitudes like this among the visually acute
| are one reason website accessibility is generally so
| poor.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I have them, and have had them since I was maybe 4. They
| work up to a point. This is more along the lines of need
| bifocals.
| boredtofears wrote:
| > Am I the only one
|
| Nope. Pretty much anytime you ask yourself this question the
| answer is always no whatever the context. You are reacting to a
| single anecdote. People like lots of different things.
| sandermvanvliet wrote:
| You're not alone, I use the 4K monitor on my laptop exclusively
| and it works just fine. More space for me just means I keep to
| much stuff open anyway
| lovelyviking wrote:
| PWM Flickering would be one reason? On M1 Air there is pwm
| flickering which makes impossible to work with it ... thanks
| Apple. [0]
|
| I would connect external monitor but it has flickering issues
| with them too. Thanks Apple again. [1]
|
| [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/PWM-Ranking-Notebooks-
| Smartpho...
|
| [1] https://piunikaweb.com/2021/01/08/apple-investigating-mac-
| mi...
| terramex wrote:
| > On M1 Air there is pwm flickering which makes impossible to
| work with it
|
| According to table you linked M1 Air has PWM frequency of
| almost 120 kHz, which very high and well above headache and
| eye strain inducing frequencies.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I've found turning the brightness up all the way to help with
| that immensely.
| geenat wrote:
| With all due respect comments like this are why hacker news
| needs a downvote button.
|
| Try a decent monitor setup before knocking it.
| can16358p wrote:
| I did try it multiple times in the past, I actually have a
| 32" 4K collecting dust right here. I just ended up not using
| them, ever.
|
| I didn't make a statement like "multiple monitors are
| useless", which would probably deserve a downvote.
|
| I genuinely asked, with all the respect to everyone who
| prefers multiple monitors, why they needed them as I might
| really be missing something that I haven't realized yet.
| Majestic121 wrote:
| Hacker news has a downvote button, unlocked after a certain
| amount of karma, but it's not to be used simply because you
| disagree with someone.
| distrill wrote:
| what? why would this be worth a downvote? also, what is with
| this attitude that nobody who has tried a "decent monitor"
| would be fine with a laptop? i have 2 high end monitors on my
| desk at work and i rarely use them because i prefer being
| comfortable on my shitty laptop so that i can be as
| productive on the go as i am in the office (or at least not
| be crippled by wishing i had a "decent monitor setup")
| wruza wrote:
| Can you please describe such decent setup and your workflow
| with it? Anything I tried was too uncomfortable, and I noted
| that a combination of software, "desktop tools", and actively
| used windows may play a big role in it. Pros and cons,
| tradeoffs and balances.
| AQuantized wrote:
| Comments like this are why the Hacker News downvote button is
| restricted.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > Am I the only one (fullstack programmer + designer + hobby
| photographer) here who's perfectly okay with a single laptop
| monitor?
|
| A nice display is nice. I feel way more productive on a 27" 5K
| imac than a 16" MBP. But I find multiple monitors to be
| annoying, better to have just one that is good (e.g. a 5K 27"
| LG or an 8K 32" Dell that I won't be able to afford anytime
| soon).
| brandall10 wrote:
| After doing the exercise of going from 3 displays -> 11" MBA
| (no external), I'm maximally productive on any reasonably
| sized laptop monitor.
|
| 16" is great, but I'm probably 95% on my new 14". It's all
| about optimizing your workflow, utilizing workspaces, tiling,
| etc.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I mean, sure, you are probably going to be 80-90% on any
| monitor that doesn't hurt your eyes (crappy refresh rate)
| and can support bitmapped graphics (not just a TTY terminal
| display). But having lived through multiple iterations of
| displays starting from plain old TTYs (4 inches at that!),
| I really appreciate display advancements and getting access
| to better/bigger ones.
| jedberg wrote:
| 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.
| benjimouse wrote:
| I'm another dev who works off a 15/16" laptop. I've always
| thought it was because all OSs make switching back and forth
| between more than two applications without losing mental focus,
| difficult. Instead I've added utils and cfgs to help with that
| in OSX.
| eludwig wrote:
| Right now I use 2 4K 27" 120hz monitors from Acer (XV273K) and
| share both with a gaming PC and my Mac 16" laptop in clamshell
| mode. The Acers have a ton of inputs (2 DP, 2 hdmi) so it's easy
| to have all hooked up at once at the monitor end.
|
| I also generally prefer one large monitor, so I will
| angle/connect 2nd DP to Mac, unangle/remove 2nd DP from Mac as
| needed for work. I am mainly a front-end web dev these days and
| occasionally really need that second screen! But I don't like
| moving my head around and inevitable go back to single monitor
| when possible.
|
| Viva la flexibility!
| skunkworker wrote:
| At the moment I have triple 24" 16:10 1920x1200 monitors in
| portrait with my laptop to the side on a mount.
|
| I find this can be advantageous to my current
| monitoring/programming setup as I can split the 3 monitors
| horizontally into 6 "zones".
|
| For the IDEs and what I am working on, this works great. But
| unfortunately monitor makers are no longer making 16:10 external
| displays. My dream display would be a 42" 6k 5760x3600 or 8k
| 7680x4800 (flat or slightly curved). As this would give ample
| real estate for full screen apps, the ability to work on IDEs
| that don't like multiple monitors, high pixel density for crisp
| text, and splitting into multiple zones.
| newbamboo wrote:
| This is wrong. Best is 2 smaller monitors one at 90.
|
| Everyone knows this.
| djbusby wrote:
| I've got 3, left is 90, center is 0 and right is -90. It's
| Tall,Wide,Tall layout. Works a treat.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| 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?
| DennisP wrote:
| 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.)
| 0des wrote:
| Like a newspaper?
| WithinReason wrote:
| This is exactly what I was thinking! Wonder how it works in
| practice.
| funkymike wrote:
| 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
| djbusby wrote:
| My wide one is in vertical centered with the tall ones, so
| the talls are above and below. It's rad, I could have a nice
| tie-fighter image fill it (if I used image background)
| zcw100 wrote:
| I've found that to be generally true but there's one caveat,
| it only hurts your neck looking up from horizontal not from
| horizontal down. Think about how you read a book. You don't
| hold it directly out in front of you, you kind of prop it up
| on your lap. I could read for hours like that. Or look at a
| concert pianist. They'll either be looking at the sheet music
| directly in front of them or down at the keys. That's why I
| go with stacked monitors, one directly in front and the other
| angled between the first monitor and the keyboard.
| crowbahr wrote:
| The top of my tall monitor is level with the top of my
| landscape monitor.
|
| So I look down to see the bottom of my tall monitor, straight
| ahead to see the top of either.
|
| I also have one overhead monitor to glance up at for
| reference or other pages. 80% of my work is done on my main
| monitor. 15% on the tall. 5% on the overhead. The overhead is
| still very useful though.
| ModernMech wrote:
| To expand on my sibling post, since vs code is really the
| only thing I run on the portrait monitor, I can scroll
| anything I need to focus on to the center. You're right it's
| tough if there is a blank page and you have to write at the
| top, but most of the time I'm dealing with a long enough file
| that I can move what I need to focus on to the center.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| I see. I used a laptop with two external monitors at 0deg
| and 90deg for a while, but I ended going out of my way to
| avoid the top half of the 90deg because it strained my neck
| too much. I tried to fill it with a dashboard, but then I
| was only using a monitor and a half for work. I've been
| happily living with a modest 0deg, 0deg since.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I tried that but it's a little too much head yaw for me. I
| landed with 2 monitors: 1 portrait to the left and one
| landscape to the right. This way I can comfortably see
| everything without turning my head. I keep vs code full screen
| on the portrait monitor and any terminals running on the
| landscape one.
| rekwah wrote:
| PLP. I had this for awhile (20-30-20) with the Dell U3011 back
| when that was a large monitor.
|
| I have PL now with an ultra-wide but still think about trying
| to include a third monitor, I miss that setup.
| SxC97 wrote:
| I have a similar setup with a super ultra wide monitor in the
| center. Great for focusing on one document while having lots of
| reference documents, YouTube videos, and stack overflow pages
| on the other monitor.
| remedan wrote:
| I used to use the exact opposite. Wide, Tall, Wide.
|
| Left was browser (with tree style tabs to the side), middle was
| Emacs, and right was everything else (mostly terminals).
|
| Having a tall code editor was nice as it provides more context
| in a file. And with a maximum of 120 columns per line, width
| was not an issue.
|
| But having Emacs on a wide monitor allows me to edit two files
| side to side, which I ended up preferring (one above another is
| not as nice). I just use two wide monitors now.
| diimdeep wrote:
| After quick searching, seems like screen arbitrary rotation and
| positioning can't be done in macOS.
| dcchambers wrote:
| 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't
| detecting user agent and were detecting screen resolution? Idk
| but it was annoying.
|
| Got a 27" 4K screen last year and I have just left it in
| landscape mode...it's been fine.
| Zak wrote:
| > _I guess those sites weren 't detecting user agent and were
| detecting screen resolution?_
|
| CSS does this via media queries and allows for different
| layouts without sending different content. Switching to a
| mobile-optimized layout at 1080px (note "px" doesn't mean
| physical pixels to a mobile browser) seems a bit aggressive
| though.
|
| I imagine it wouldn't be hard for a browser extension to
| override this behavior, though it could lead to broken layouts
| or horizontal scrolling.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Just zoom out. Make sure you use page zoom and not text zoom.
| No need for extensions.
| swsieber wrote:
| Some 4k screens allow you to split the screen down the middle
| and act as two monitors. Maybe that'd be nice for you?
| jedberg wrote:
| 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.
| hawski wrote:
| I fondly remember using two monitors with thin bezels one
| rotated 90deg and the other 270deg. I think they could be HP
| M22f. It makes almost a square. Bezels in the middle can be
| nuisance, but I usually divide windows or splits in the middle.
| I guess with as thin bezels as possible it should be still
| cheaper than the mentioned $1429 square monitor. Now I'm
| tempted to get them. But there are more pressing matters in
| terms of my setup though.
| vultour wrote:
| Eizo makes a 1:1 26" 1920x1920 monitor. I've been tempted
| several times but the 1k price tag is keeping me off for now.
| Lammy wrote:
| I wish they made this with a high refresh rate. It would be
| hard for me to go from 144Hz panels back down to 60: https://
| www.eizoglobal.com/products/flexscan/ev2730q/index.h...
|
| Looks like they also offer a 2048px square 28" for anyone
| willing to pay Air Traffic Control prices: https://www.eizogl
| obal.com/products/atc/sq2825/index.html#ta...
|
| Also this is the first time I've ever seen a monitor brochure
| page be NSFW https://eizo-or.com/en/global/products/monitors/
| MarkLowenstein wrote:
| I've got one. 100% recommended. Bought mine at $1500. I'm not
| rich but I've never regretted this purchase.
| wruza wrote:
| Have you considered buying an nvidia card and 4k monitor of
| the same height (or width) and setting square resolution +
| cropping one/both edges?
| bajsejohannes wrote:
| > My ideal programming screen is a 1:1 square
|
| I have never tried it, but to me that seems ideal too. There
| seems to be close to zero demand for these, though, so I could
| only find this very expensive and not very high DPI monitor:
| https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1138908-REG/eizo_ev27...
|
| $1,429.00 for a 1920 x 1920 monitor? Meh. I'd rather stick with
| a single large landscape monitor.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Horrific.
| rsweeney21 wrote:
| For years I ran triple monitors side by side. Then I tried dual
| _widescreen_ monitors stacked vertically. This has been game
| changing. It is much easier on my neck to look up 10 deg vs
| turning sideways 45 deg
|
| I can split VC code into three columns on my main monitor, then
| have two zones in the top monitor for other apps.
|
| 10/10.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| Where does the webcam go?
| gumby wrote:
| For ergonomic reasons the rotation should change continuously and
| randomly so the developer doesn't spend too much time in one
| position.
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| 22 degrees? celcius?
|
| Currently im trucking 4 monitors. I am planning to buy a 43" 4k
| tv and drop down.
|
| Anyone else try this? Does it work out?
| zamadatix wrote:
| I did a 55" 8k for a bit but that was too physically big so
| looking at the edges was weird. 43" is probably a lot better in
| that regard but for me that turned me off single large displays
| instead of arrays.
|
| In the end I ended up with 6 displays in a 3x2 arrangement: 3x
| 1440p + 1x 4k on the primary PC and 1x 1440p + 1x 4k on the
| secondary PC and then I used Input Director so it feels like
| all 6 are one big computer when using the keyboard/mouse (used
| to use Mouse Without Borders but Input Director is far superior
| these days). I like this setup more because it gives me a
| larger primary monitor on each computer to work off of but
| leaves me separate monitors to put secondary things on. This
| comes with the bonus that fullscreen doesn't mean "and
| everything else must be gone" yet I still have the bigger
| primary display to fullscreen with.
|
| General note I've fallen in love with
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082845XM8/ as it's simple,
| cheap, and extremely sturdy.
| ddek wrote:
| This is completely repulsive. I love it.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| 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 1366x768 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).
| madrox wrote:
| I think I'll mandate this for my entire engineering team, but put
| each team member 1 degree off from each other and measure the
| change in productivity. Not only can we see if the results are
| reproducible, but we can determine how much a degree of rotation
| impacts productivity.
| tbrock wrote:
| 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?
| ziml77 wrote:
| I can only imagine this being the case if someone has their
| desktop resolution set wrong. The panels have square pixels, so
| increasing the horizontal size necessarily adds more pixels.
| SomeBoolshit wrote:
| I've never encountered an ultra wide that didn't support the
| equivalent desktop resolution. Are you sure this wasn't a
| problem with the drivers or the capabilities of the device you
| plugged it into?
| CitrusFruits wrote:
| I've never seen this happen. If you look at Newegg for example
| all these monitors seem to have the proper resolution to
| accommodate their aspect ratio.
|
| https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=ultrawide
|
| *edited for grammar
| pitched wrote:
| I use a Samsung Odyssey G9 and it has both the distance and
| resolution of two 28" 1440p monitors. Thing is a dream for
| coding with but kind of terrible for both movies and games
| because of that crazy aspect ratio!
| MatthewWilkes wrote:
| My Samsung Ultrawide has a 3840x1080 resolution. Once or twice
| it's been misdetected as normal horizontal resolution, when
| switching PIP off. I suspect you've been the victim of a
| driver/host issue.
| trarman wrote:
| My Dell ultrawide displays 5120x1440. It's glorious to behold.
| Decabytes wrote:
| My ideal is one in front of me, and one rotated vertically to the
| left.
|
| Vertical one is for chat, terminal, and or browser
| pfkurtz wrote:
| Add a vertical on the other side and achieve enlightenment.
| KronisLV wrote:
| As someone who's largely stuck with middle of the road hardware
| for financial reasons, i find that 1080p monitors are the sweet
| spot between having the screen estate for my programs and plenty
| of text on the screen, but also graphics performance if i ever
| want to do something else - from watching movies, doing 3D
| modelling or 3D printing, to gaming without resolution scaling.
|
| Of course, i splurged a little bit on an RX 570, so currently i
| have multiple monitors connected to my PC, two stacked
| vertically, one on my PC case to the side, and another turned in
| portrait orientation to the other side. Personally, that setup
| works for me, since the way OSes do window snapping and tiling is
| inconsistent, so it's easy to work in both Windows and Linux with
| multiple monitors, without trying to split everything up into
| smaller zones or trying to use a tiling window manager.
|
| However, if you want to customize things further (e.g. Windows
| doesn't really do vertically stacked snapping zones), the
| PowerToys FancyZones is suitable for this, whereas at least some
| Linux desktops can probably be customized to do this too (without
| spending too much time, i think LXDE didn't let you alter it that
| much, or another DE/WM, though my memory might fail me here).
|
| There's something immensely useful about having one monitor for
| previewing the webpage or software that i'm working on, one for
| writing the code or using my Git client of choice, and another
| for anything from documentation, chat apps in the background or
| even just watching a video.
|
| I'd say that the biggest problem with this setup is that i needed
| to make my own VESA mounts and a stand out of some PVC tubing and
| PLA plastic (3D printed and screwed on with bolts), since the
| options for any sort of custom monitor configuration out there
| are limited, if you don't want to spend a lot of money on it.
| piyh wrote:
| Your opinion of 1080p monitors is 100% tied to your GPU.
| KronisLV wrote:
| Apart from the reasons in the post above, there's also the
| fact that i wouldn't have enough space on my desk for
| multiple monitors at a much higher resolution, unless i were
| to use fewer of them - few large monitors at high resolutions
| (or just one) also work for some folks, of course.
|
| The aforementioned window snapping issue would also take work
| with my current workflow.
|
| And in regards to games and multitasking while playing them,
| having some titles take up the whole screen and not let me
| watch a video in the background would be annoying, too,
| unless i were to always play them in windowed mode.
|
| Oh, and don't get me started on software, especially the kind
| that doesn't utilize native UI frameworks, not respecting
| high DPI configurations and everything therefore being
| unreadably small. On the other hand, resolution scaling in
| Windows sucks in certain software, e.g. i have a 27" monitor
| at work and scaling with a factor of 125% makes things
| blurry, which is really annoying.
|
| So it's also a certain bit of modern OSes largely being
| defective and insufficient when dealing with certain
| configurations.
|
| Would having a better GPU be nice? Sure. In this economy?
| Probably not. I also throttle my RX 570 to a 50% power limit,
| otherwise it tends to get loud sometimes.
| robbintt wrote:
| I used 1080p for 5 years with a 33 inch screen, it was very
| good.
|
| For 4 years I have used a 27-29 inch screen at 2k, that's
| incredible. I now use a 34" wide angle screen at 2k, which I
| find even better, since I have a bit more width without much
| (or any?) extra height.
|
| At this exact moment I am on a 34" ultrawide and it's too wide
| for me I have to turn my head too much.
|
| Bottom line, you can get 27" 2k screens for very cheap now and
| it's a step up from the 1080p, but yeah, the 1920x1080 is fine.
| MivLives wrote:
| Head turning is actually why I have a vertical monitor. With
| a 1440p next to a 1080, I'd have to turn my head a ton to see
| it all. Now with my 1080p vertical less movement. It also
| nice that webpages like being above 1000 pixels wide, so
| splitting two web pages on the vertical keeps them in their
| desktop version.
| triggercut wrote:
| The ideal rotation is clearly p/8 rad
| htek wrote:
| 'Tis a bit of a silly article, I'd go insane trying to keep my
| application windows in the sweet spot for viewing them at a 22
| degree rotation. One thing strikes me that I've wondered about
| when I would rotate some of my monitors: the color shift/viewing
| angle issue. I can understand in older monitors that have
| different viewing angles for horizontal and vertical, but some of
| my monitors over the years have been 176 degrees H + V or 178
| degrees H + V, so why is there such a marked difference in what
| is being displayed when it is at 0 degrees rotation vs 90 degrees
| rotation?
| bitcharmer wrote:
| At first I thought this is a satirical article but then I
| realised the author was serious.
|
| I still think this ~22deg rotation is utter nonsense.
| justusthane wrote:
| I am pretty sure it is satirical, or at least not meant to be
| taken super seriously.
|
| > It provides the longest line lengths and no longer need to
| worry about that pesky 80 column limit.
|
| You don't need a monitor at a 22 degree angle to eliminate 80
| character line limits ;)
| Bud wrote:
| Absolutely absurd. Just get a monitor that doesn't have a
| hostile, stupid aspect ratio. Then rotate it 90deg if that's what
| works best for you. Done.
| pfkurtz wrote:
| 2560x1080 curved horizontal with editor between two vertical
| 1080x1920, one with terminal, one with browser.
| codingdave wrote:
| I just run on a 45" TV at 3840 x 2160. Sure, the response time is
| slow for gaming, but it works fine for movies and coding. And I
| have enough space that I can set each window to whatever size and
| orientation I want.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I used a 40-or-so inch med-to-low tier TV for coding a bit, and
| was surprised at how not terrible it was. The latency was not
| actually that much worse than a monitor.
|
| This was in the living room, which is sort of inconvenient. So
| I decided to get one for my desk. Being a silly project just
| for myself, I didn't want to splurge on it, so I went for the
| cheapest 4k I could find. I think it may have been a store
| brand.
|
| The response time on that thing was noticeably terrible, like I
| would lose track of the cursor in vim because it wasn't keeping
| up properly.
|
| The moral of the story I think is that you _can_ get a not-
| terrible 4k tv for coding reasonably cheap, but the response
| time issue may still exist. It is probably just a roll of the
| dice.
| tsfranke wrote:
| 100% agreed.
|
| Previously dual monitor, 24" 1920 x 1080, portrait left,
| landscape right. left was usually for email and chat, right for
| coding and browser.
|
| Now it's a single 40" 4k tv as my display. Using gridmove to
| easily partition the screen as needed. It's like have 4 1080p
| screens with no border. Only downside I've come across is some
| screensharing apps will always share the entire desktop when
| sharing a single app (webex is worst offender) - just the app
| window will be shown, but with massive greyed out background.
| Can be fixed by changing desktop res, just an annoyance.
|
| Moving to a single massive screen has honestly lead to better
| productivity, but i possibly attribute that more to gridmove
| than overall screen real estate.
| alexfoo wrote:
| For screen sharing I use Picture-in-Picture mode of my 43" 4K
| monitor (Acer DM431K) to give me a separate 1920x1080 screen
| to share when required. That way it is at the right size and
| resolution for everyone.
| bertjk wrote:
| Interesting.. does this mean you have two separate cables
| connecting to two different inputs of the monitor?
| alexfoo wrote:
| Yes. One HDMI 2.0 to give me 4K@60Hz and then one usb-c
| to HDMI (or is it DP) for the PiP.
|
| Only one input on this specific monitor can do 4K@60Hz,
| all the others are 4K@30Hz or good refresh at lower
| resolutions.
|
| Takes 20 seconds to enable the second display in display
| settings and then pick the right input for the PiP mode
| on the monitor (it has a remote). Most of the time I have
| my personal laptop displaying in the PiP frame lower
| right. The remaining 3/4 of the screen is my work area.
| codingdave wrote:
| I fix that by maximizing whatever app I'm sharing and upping
| the zoom. It looks comically large on my screen, but normal
| to the rest of the folks on the call.
| scollet wrote:
| I usually work from a Dutch angle because some code really has me
| cocking my head.
| klyrs wrote:
| I did the multi-monitor thing for years. Ultimately, I hate
| moving my head around that much. My current setup is a 4K curved
| screen, with i3wm. It's enough screen space for up to 9 usefully-
| sized panes, and also enough for a tall or very wide pane when
| the situation calls for it. The ability to reconfigure panes from
| the keyboard is a real game-changer.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| I'm unable to find the combination of ,,4K" and ,,curved" and
| ,,affordable".
|
| What model do you use?
| klyrs wrote:
| Well... I didn't say "affordable." I spent as much on this
| monitor as I spent on a laptop in grad school ($700ish).
| Three factors for me here: I transitioned to working from
| home and the expense was tax-deductable; I'm not in grad
| school anymore; I'm very frugal, so when do make a rare
| purchase, I go for quality.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| Cool. Would you mind sharing the make and model, though?
| klyrs wrote:
| Dell S3221QS
|
| This is not an endorsement. I've got some issues with the
| monitor -- it does something weird displaying certain
| patterns, which comes up for me occasionally. Also,
| sometimes, the curved screen bugs me, because straight
| lines aren't straight. YMMV
| bee_rider wrote:
| I got a decently inexpensive 2k curved Phillips monitor at
| the beginning of the pandemic. Pretty happy with it (lucky
| buy, given that I didn't know it would be my window to the
| world for a couple years). At the time at least, 4k was still
| quite expensive. I don't know how much benefit 4k provides at
| typical desktop usage distances.
|
| (328E9FJAB but I suspect you can find plenty that are just as
| good in the 2k range).
| chrismorgan wrote:
| Why stop at _rotation_ when you've got a full transformation
| matrix?
| cylon13 wrote:
| Ideal Monitor Skew for Programmers
| Cerium wrote:
| Why do people complain about wasted white space on the side of
| their windows? Who said you have to full-screen every
| application?
|
| My slack window is about 1/3 of a screen, zoom a bit smaller,
| Firefox about 2/3 of a screen, Outlook about 2/3. I think the
| only window I regularly make full size is the terminal.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| I think it's because Windows doesn't come with good window
| management. But now they have FancyZones[0] so it's much
| easier.
|
| [0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/powertoys/fancyzone...
| RHSeeger wrote:
| This is exactly what I was thinking.
|
| > Websites and documents usually end up with a lot of
| whitespace and padding around them
|
| I can't imagine have _any_ window full width on a large screen.
| I have 5 windows visible on my primary screen right now, and
| that's not even a lot for me. The browser, at max, is about 60%
| of the screen's width.
| lovecg wrote:
| My contrarian take: I prefer to work from a small laptop, with a
| non-fullscreen terminal window, and no IDE. This forces me to
| understand the code I'm working on better - since I can't see a
| lot of things at a glance, I got really good at juggling concepts
| in my working memory. I've read that visually challenged people
| who get really good at super fast text-to-speech almost acquire a
| super power of quick comprehension, and I guess I'm emulating
| something like that with my minimalistic setup.
| snissn wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/378/
| m3kw9 wrote:
| I have another idea, rotate it 90, then rotate the bottom near
| you. Now everything looks like Star Wars Intro screen.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-12-02 23:00 UTC)