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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

What are people using their second screens for?

And why not use a virtual workspace manager instead?

When I'm coding, I generally have code on one, and the other has a browser with documentation, notes, issue tracker, or just used for searches etc. Usually that monitor is split and also has chat visible.

When I'm testing/debugging, one monitor might be the web app I'm working on, the other is the code I'm stepping through. Or I'll be tailing a log file or watching something in a database while using the app.

I do lots of client/server stuff, so sometimes I have a monitor showing the server-side (web UI and/or logs) and the other showing client-side (cli, logs, and/or local UI). The key useful thing is seeing the client do an action and send something to the server, and seeing the server instantly react: that's not possible when you can't see everything.

In some cases, I'm debugging remotely, and a monitor will be partly or completely dedicated to ssh/rdp/vnc to the remote system(s), with the other used for browser or cli app I'm testing. Usually chat, documentation, source, issue tracker is mixed in there too.

There's a couple things I work on that have long running builds (10+ minutes) or integration tests that takes a bit over 30 mins. Both are long enough that I'll do something else while waiting and suddenly 2 hours pass before I remember, so I like keeping the build status page visible somewhere to avoid that.

Even for non-work/coding sometimes I just have YouTube or Netflix open (either 1/4 window or full-screen) while I'm browsing the web on another.

To me, working on my laptop is doable, but feels like having one hand tied behind my back when compared to working with multiple monitors and a proper keyboard and mouse.

I have 4 screens on my desk. From left to right:

Vertical oriented 1080p: chat windows, sometimes replaced by multiple command line windows.

Horizontal 4K: Emacs, Visual Studio Code, Browser with repositories/jira, command line windows.

Horizontal 4K: Browser with documentation, secondary VS Code windows, Outlook, Teams.

Macbook Pro screen: Finder, calculator, more command line windows.

Most of my "main" work takes place in the 2 horizontal 4K screens. The other 2 screens are "secondary" information. Having that much screen real estate allows me to more easily collect and arrange the information I need to do my job.

If I could change anything, it would be getting a 24 inch 4K screen to replace the vertical one, and having a higher refresh rate than 60Hz on all my screens.

I hope that one day 8K screens become affordable, because I'd love even sharper text. Reading on the vertical 1080p screen seems fuzzy compared to the 4K screens. (Which is definitely a "first world problem"!!)

You must feel seriously under-equipped when working anywhere else than your desk ;)

I sometimes have to rough it with only a single exterior screen! Once I had to work on only the laptop by itself. The Horror!

;)

But, more seriously since this is HN: While the extra screens are great, as is the mouse and mechanical keyboard, it's not much of a hassle at all to work in a different location. I think the extra screens, desk space, peripherals, all go towards making me more comfortable rather than efficient. Which for me, rocking the oh-so-annoying ADHD along with nerve and back pain, means I can focus on work for that much longer in one session.

I should be working from home at least until mid 2021, hopefully much longer or even permanently. A good working environment can really improve your mental health at a time when, in the USA especially, things are incredibly stressful.

Hello from another ADHD sufferer. Interestingly though I fall on the other side of the remote work issue - I cannot wait to return to the office. My brain is quite stubborn about categorizing spaces; my computer room at home is where I do some side project programming and a fair amount of gaming. Having to try to recategorize it as a working space has proven impossible, and I don't really have any other space in this house, with my wife also working remotely.

Besides, more generally the drive to the office helps put me in work mode. The whole office building is a place where work happens. Then the drive home helps put me in leisure mode. Without those neatly coded space/time contexts I have been seriously struggling.

Everybody that keeps talking about how the world is going remote has been giving me a fair amount of anxiety. If I lose my office I'm not sure how I'm going to function. Besides, my coworkers and I miss seeing each other and being able to work together in person. We don't do much pair programming, but when we do, trying to do so over screen share has proven to be significantly less productive.

But then again, I am lucky to have an amazing team of people who I genuinely enjoy being around, and who are all very respectful of quiet time to work when needed. I'm also definitely an introvert but maybe less so than the average dev.. I miss social contact!

Sometimes I feel like in a diferent world than everyone else. I'm really happy with my 1080p devices, and upgrading them to higher resolution would feel like a waste of resources to me (I don't have especially bad eye sight, but on 1080p things are already small enough to my taste)

(Of course I'm talking only about computer monitor, for very big TV screens or for screens that I have 10cm from my nose it's a different story)

I find that I am more sensitive to low resolution when I don’t have my contacts in since it takes a blurry image and makes it blurrier.

For me personally, it is only really noticeable when I shift my eyes from one of the middle 4K screens to the 1080p screen.

I am a little picky about fonts and their display though. The higher resolution the screen, the better. I have my Emacs configuration using a bunch of different fonts and sizes/weights/etc for my Org-mode, Terraform, TypeScript, and other editing. For example, when a todo item is put into "in progress" the heading is slightly larger and bolder, and when that item is complete, marking it "done" changes the text to italic, extra-light, and grey to reduce its visibility.

Time spent messing around with fonts is definitely an expression of ADHD and active procrastination, but I do get a pleasing effect from it! :)

Just got (as in, 2-3 hours ago) a new 4k display (32") to add to my 2x22" setup. My eyes are already happier. I'm using windows with scale set to 150% (for the 4k display) and 100% for the other 2.

I use 200% for my 4K screens, but I'm also older (late 40s) with poor eyesight.

WFH have an old Apple 20" screen as my only display. 1680 x 1050. With multiple workspaces and a tiling window manager, I find it completely usable. At the office I had two screens, but don't really miss it.

Because I can't see what's going on on a virtual desktop out of the corner of my eye? Because I can't easily play a game on one virtual desktop and have a browser open to glance at a guide, or a discord server or ...

I don't know why you wouldn't want two screens, personally. I've worked with three before and found them useful. Virtual desktops never felt natural.

The closest I came to adopting them really was during the "compiz" era, using the desktop cube effect. That metaphor seemed to play into my brain's spatial awareness quite well. But still not quite as well as a separate screen.

> The closest I came to adopting them really was during the "compiz" era, using the desktop cube effect. That metaphor seemed to play into my brain's spatial awareness quite well. But still not quite as well as a separate screen.

This makes me wonder how your brain can handle multiple browser tabs ;)

For me personally (not who you responded to), honestly not very well. I'm always losing track of which tabs are which. When the tabs are simple content it's mostly okay; mentally it's just like having a tabbed notebook. But if the tabs are interaction- or app-centric, my brain begins to slowly jam up.

My ADHD almost certainly takes a lot of the blame for that.

Honestly I have limits with those too. Any more than fit across the screen and I start to lose track. I find it mind boggling when people say they have dozens and dozens of tabs open at a time.

Definitely. I typically have browsers open in two or three different workspaces, for different purposes and with different profiles. But within any browser session, I never have more than half-a-dozen open tabs. I can't really mentally manage more than that.

That's like asking, what do you use your 3-room apartment for? Can you not just do with 1 room and a large cupboard?

Well, I wouldn't own a 3-room apartment if I could change those rooms with a keystroke and effectively own a 9+ room apartment.

But your real estate doesn’t change, you just redecorate your 1-room apartment each time you want to do something different

I think that having multiple screens might use less cognitive resources than having virtual workspaces, since it is very natural to move your head / mouse whereas the workspace manager is a more high level construct.

When I do purchasing for my ecommerce business I keep a spreadsheet in one screen and a browser in the other. Occationally I do from my laptop with one screen and it takes longer and I make more mistakes because the spreadsheet is huge and there is too much cognitive overhead when I have to keep flipping between windows/virtual desktops.

Also when coding. I keep docs and messaging apps on one screen and I can keep the other screen clean with only code. It really is faster and easier with two screens.

I've seen this question a few times and have been looking for hard sells, especially because I spent quite a few workdays during summer in a hammock without a second screen.

I've found about two hard sells so far:

Online presentations and demos to people. For example, showing some slides to some people, with some jumps to code or terminals. In this case, it's extremely valuable to have the call with webcams open on a second monitor so I can keep tabs on the expressions of the audience in order to adjust tempo. Switching the contents of the presentation screen / shared screen without warning is jarring and confusing to the audience. And commonly used communication programs do not support sharing one virtual desktop easily, only screens and/or windows.

And sometimes, it is valuable to be able to display more information at once. Sometimes, during larger outages, it helps to be able to display more key metrics of the system on one screen and poking the system on the other screen. This one can be done with virtual desktops, yes, but it has less overall cognitive overhead for me to just have a stable screen with the monitoring data and/or logs on it available instead of constantly flipping between desktops.

And again, during screen sharing, people hate it and get confused if I flip the main screen around too much between monitoring data and shells. So having a work screen to share with people on a call and another screen for information helps reduce that.

A lot of other use cases are convenient with more screen space, but good virtual screens with hotkeys work almost as well I've found.

Virtual desktops are useful, but often a physical screen is better. For example, it's much more convenient to glance to and fro from code and logs/stack trace.

But keeping track of where the mouse pointer is is much easier using a virtual desktop.

I think, for most, the advantages of a second physical monitor outweigh any mouse tracking disadvantages!

You can set up accessibility features to help with this. Make it larger or configure it so shaking it makes it much larger for a short time.

This is why cursors on text terminals would blink.

But I'm not sure making a mouse pointer blink is the right thing to do.

The whole Windows-Icons-Mouse-Pointer environment was developed when 640x400 was a high resolution and 22" monitors were considered huge. So easy to pick out the pointer at rest, but I can see how you can get lost on basically a 4K resolution TV.

The answer to the second question is obvious: because you can't see both at once.

As for the use cases, here are my most common layouts (3 monitors - old 4:3, 1440p, vertical 1080p):

- preview/debugger | code | docs (programming)

- slides | video call | chat (online presentations)

- gallery | photo | same photo but 1:1 zoom (photo editing)

- effect controls | timeline,preview,more controls | clip bins (video editing)

- chat | game | game wiki

Guess I'll jump in too :). I have two 27" 4k monitors, the one directly in front holds work, the one off to the left has docs, chat, email, etc. I also use virtual desktops and I could arrange all this stuff with those, but having to switch back and forth is a minor cognitive hurdle I choose to avoid.

I tend to run both. The second screen let's me have source/editor on one and reference material on the other. My daily driver is a three screen setup( laptop display and two external monitors). There's usually some combination of logs, app ui, source, and refence material across all three so I can switch between them without having to think about which virtual display they are on. In support situations, I'll have a screen share running on one, chat on another, and likely reference material on a third. You could do it with a single huge display, but it would need to be huge and have a way to subdivide it into reasonable slices for easy window snapping. Plus, you aren't going to get that in anything that can be used as a laptop ...

The web browsers inspector is my main use at the moment. The M1 MBP display is simply too small to have the inspector and the browser comfortably on screen simultaneously, and its not possible to flick between virtual desktops (or application windows) without losing the context (some targeting stuff is hover-based, for example). Plus its annoying tweaking a css style, flicking back and forth all the time instead of seeing your change reflected as you change it.

Some of us use multiple screens and virtual workspaces, it's not mutually exclusive.

I grew up on programming on a Mac SE, so layering feels natural to me versus needing to have everything on screen at once. That said, a 26” 4K monitor “above” (with the resolution increased a bit) my 15” MacBook Pro has been a good setup in WFH mode.

Looking at the matrix. Encoded ofcourse cause theres way too much information and the image translators only work for construct program.

It's more screen estate. Where it's usefuld depends on what you are doing.

I often have one screen for "actual" work and the other screen for chat/mail/... then checking for something going on there isn't a full context switch, but a short look.

Sometimes in development a second screen can be useful to have a screen full of different code files and second screen for documentation or the app or logs or whatever.

During video chat i have the faces of the others on one screen and notes and other things on the other screen or during social videoconfs during covid I have faces in one screen and second screen for a (board) game we are playing ...

It always depends on what you are doing. Things one can do are many.

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