Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

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>Most workflows can benefit from multiple monitors.

I used to believe this but not anymore. Way back in 2007, I spent $2500 for 2 Samsung 30" 2560x1600 monitors ($1250 each). I envisioned a massive productivity increase with scenarios such as:

- email inbox one screen with main "task" window on another screen

- video tutorial (e.g. Photoshop training) on one screen while following along on Photoshop on the main screen

- debugger on one window with the code output on another screen

Eliminating all the Alt-Tab window switching would be supposedly be gone. That was the theory. The problem is that I didn't realize that my eyes hated having these giant lightbulbs in my peripheral vision. It was uncomfortable enough that I often powered off 1 monitor which negated the point of multiple monitors. The other thing I didn't like was the extra heat 2 monitors would add to the room.

I went back to 1 monitor and Alt-Tab is minimized if the single monitor is big enough (at least 27") to have multiple windows of reasonable size. For me to go back to multiple monitors, I'd need the "wing" screens to be color e-ink panels[0] so that they don't act as bright flashlights in my peripheral vision.

I recognize the productivity benefits of multiple monitors -- especially for "dashboard" and monitoring[1] such as stock trading, devops IT corporate/cloud systems monitoring, SpaceX rocket launch monitoring, etc. Having your peripheral vision notice an abnormal activity is useful in those scenarios.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=e-ink+panel+&tbm=isch

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=multiple+monitors+trading&tb...

I too don't like lots of bright windows/monitors in my peripheral vision.

On macOS, a utility called HazeOver makes working with three monitors much nicer.

https://hazeover.com/

What if you routinely want to look at multiple windows? Can you easily choose which windows are not dimmed of the many on your desktop?

You can set it up so the one active window on each monitor is not dimmed, so if you have two or three monitors you can have two or three non-dimmed windows. You can't do anything more fine-grained than that, as far as I know. You can also toggle the dimming on or off with a global hotkey.

Not exactly the same thing, but I have 3 physical monitors in Windows and when I need to go into focus-mode I sometimes use an application called MultiScreenBlank[1] to dim or blank out the screens I do not want to bother me.

[1]: http://multiscreenblank.nookkin.com/

Similar here. Also, my workstation is now a laptop with a big screen, so I can go work wherever is comfortable at the moment, without being crippled without my multiple monitor setup.

I use tiling window managers to help make this work. (Currently, xmonad on personal laptop, and trying out i3 on my work laptop to see if I can get is as productive for me as xmonad.)

When docked, the laptop's screen usually displays my first virtual desktop, which is for email, chat, misc monitoring. All the other desktops are for Web and tasks.

There are two many tools, setups, and conventions to get into here, but I'd just like to say I'm currently a fan of the approach that all I need is my laptop and Internet to do all my work.

(Well, sometimes I need other specialized hardware. But I don't need to be at my desk for the big monitors.)

Agreed but you got very large monitors. If you have regular sized monitors (~23-24") then you can arrange them in more creative ways than horizontally.

I'm using 3 monitors - the two main are right in front of me, the one on top of the other, and the 3rd is on the side, rotated vertically. I tried several arrangements and I found this one working great for me.

I like the additional monitor on its side. Terminal window plus Telegram open in that, or a code editor with web browser on the horizontal screen. Even two 24" monitors side-by-side horizontal seems like a long way to go from one side to the other, the arrangement I have now seems very natural. Multiple workspaces on my Linux desktop really help as well.

I agree with the other points, but for this:

> The other thing I didn't like was the extra heat 2 monitors would add to the room.

This has probably changed with modern monitors. I don't think I've ever felt that a non-CRT monitor was hot, but even it might have been true a long time ago, it definitely hasn't been the case since at least 2015.

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