Comment by bengl3rt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bengl3rt | Hacker News Reader

Siracusa strikes me as a power user type so I'm extremely surprised that he neglected to mention how patently awful and useless Mission Control is on multiple monitors.

Whereas in the Spaces view in Snow Leopard I could move a window to a different space AND a different monitor with a quick drag, Mission Control doesn't allow this - I have to first move the window to the correct "Desktop", then exit MC and drag it to the correct monitor.

Full Screen Apps are similarly useless on multiple monitors - regardless of which monitor the window originates on, clicking the full screen button returns it to whatever display is designated "primary". Even worse, while you're in full screen on one display, the others become useless as it blocks them out with Apple's new favorite canvas texture. Why?

At first I thought all this was intentional and that Apple was leaving multi-monitor users in the dust to focus on Macs that are very close to iOS devices (11" Macbook Air comes to mind), but today they also announced a new Cinema Display that lets you daisy chain two monitors off a single Thunderbolt port. Clearly it's still a mode of operation they intend to support for some time - so why have they crippled it so horribly in this release?

Actually interestingly enough full screen apps that have palettes are really nice on multiple monitors. Omnigraffle, etc. The palettes can live on top of the linen on your secondary display. it makes using Keynote, omnigraffle and similar apps such a joy.

Example: http://f.cl.ly/items/0x3q260l0a390E1u1N1P/Screen%20Shot%2020...

That's great, but the whole reason I like multiple monitors (instead of one big one) is to segregate tasks. For example having full-screen terminal on one monitor and a browser on the other.

I think the assumption here is that if you have multiple displays you would rarely need full screen apps in the first place. It's definitely a feature that works best on a laptop display. The best alternative I can think of is to full-screen all the windows on each display. So for example if you had 3 monitors with 3 Safari windows, one on each display, they would go full-screen on their respective display. (downside is it would be awkward to leave full screen since the controls for it reside on the menubar)

Regarding Mission Control and multiple monitors, what it will let you do is if it's on your second monitor in your current space, you can drag it to the second monitor of another space. It is odd that it doesn't let you do it directly (it even highlights if you drag it over, but just doesn't drop). So I guess you have to move it to the second, then go to mission control, then change what space it's in. Although this is just a different workflow it does make a bit more sense. Hopefully a change will come for this however.

Windows is just as bad. Windows 7 doesn't ship with multiple taskbars for your secondary monitors. Seriously?

What's worse is that the developers actually making these features are probably using more than one monitor. And hitting those productivity gaps every day.

When I used Windows on a multi-monitor setup I never found myself wishing, "if only I had a taskbar on each monitor." (Similarly, I've never wished for multiple docks on OSX.) So YMMV.

The dock is an application organizer, the taskbar is a window organizer. Big difference.

The windows on each monitor should be represented in a taskbar on that same monitor. Easier to comprehend, faster to mouse to. The app Ultramon does this very well, it's essential for any multi-monitor Windows install.

Except I use one monitor almost exclusively for reference. I want as much screen real estate there as possible. Since my mouse is already on the editing monitor, it would take _more_ effort to move it over there to switch windows.

With the default Windows 7 group and icon behavior, they're virtually identical in behavior...

Power users go with the "Combine when taskbar is full" option. Reduces clicks and hover times tenfold.

Power users go with the "Combine when taskbar is full" option.

What sample size do you have here?

Me :)

One puts a task bar on the same screen as the applications which makes it easy to switch applications per window, the other hides pictures of the application in a task bar on another screen which makes it harder to switch applications at all and completely ignores screen distinctions.

They aren't virtually identical; they aren't even the same thing done differently, they're completely different.

What are you talking about? I'm dual monitoring with both windows and OS X right now. Both have their taskbar on my right hand monitor. Both have icons for launched applications with indicators representing each instance of the application. They both include icons for quick, often used apps that are present even when the application is not open.

They're identical... Is there any chance that you're using "task bar" to mean the application's menu? There are lots of engrossing UI discussion surrounding the application menu and the global menu, but that's not what we're discussing here...

Hell, if you ignored the fact that the Windows taskbar extends across the bottom of the screen and is grey rather than floating in the middle, and ignored the start button vs the finder button... my taskbar and dock look identical, Chrome, Firefox, VLC, Office Apps.

I see; I interpreted you meaning Windows 7's solution is virtually the same effectiveness as Ultramon because of window groups. Missed that you were comparing the OS X dock and 7.

Ultramon does a pretty good job. But I always wonder why MSFT didn't just clone the ultramon features. Why not? How hard could it be?

You might want to check out ActualMultipleMonitors as well. It adds some features that I don't believe Ultramon has yet, such as the ability to have a completely functional taskbar on your secondary, complete with its own start button and notification area/clock/etc.

I didn't need this feature until I started running multiple 30''s, but now that I am it's invaluable.

+1, trying it out now and it works pretty well. Really wish there was a simple multiple monitor app though. The ActualMultipleMonitors settings screen is a clusterfuck, has all these 'features' like extra title menu buttons that I don't want and can't figure out how to turn off.

I totally agree, it's a disaster. I feel the same way about GridMove, which is the best thing I've been able to find for managing multiple windows on a big display. For some reason, the syntax for defining the grids is so opaque to me that whenever I look at it I feel like I'm trying to read in a dream.

By the way, you can definitely remove those buttons. I don't remember how, but I do remember thinking it took far too long to find the setting to disable them.

I gotta say, Windows 7 nailed it when dragging maximized apps from one screen to the other.

wasn't ready in time and will be fixed for 10.7.1?

I really hope so...

Don't know why you're getting down voted, seems to me this is the obvious reason (if not 10.7.1 then 10.7.x). These are clearly bugs, and I agree, they make these features kind of useless for me on my main setup. Prior to Lion I already used a "poor man's fullscreen" by manually making the windows these sizes on each screen. Was hoping this would make things better but instead made it infinitely worse.

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