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Comment by InMice | Hacker News Reader

I get bonkers annoyed using just two monitors with macos or windows. multi monitor management... nothing behaves how i want it to, apps never open where they should etc etc. I havent tried it on desktop linux enough to know if it's any better - maybe at least id assume have the most configuration control on linux.

How do you do it? I always give up in frustration. 100% would keep the genelecs :)

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I can only speak for the Cinnamon desktop environment on Linux Mint, but it’s very simple:

- Apps always launch on the monitor your mouse cursor is on

- Switching the focused window to the other monitor is Win+Shift+Arrow Keys

So if I clicked to open an app, it’s on the monitor I’m already looking at. If I used a keyboard shortcut, win+shift+arrow is super easy and simple.

The fact that it’s a stupid simple rule means I can get way better at just doing things by muscle memory… I don’t have to worry about being outsmarted by the window manager.

Thanks Im going to try it

>Apps always launch on the monitor your mouse cursor is on

...but you can set up rules to force a given program to always launch at a specified position and dimension.

I use AeroSpace on mac os for tiling window management with spaces mapped per monitor so that eg space 1 is my top monitor woth my email and chat and space e is on the left for my obsidian, spaces asdfgh are my center monitor for code and terminals, and spaces zxcvb are the right monitor for browsers. I dont stick to this organization rigidly and when I'm doing odd tasks like cad or developing an app I break the patterns and put things on whatever monitor is convenient. I try to stick to a few common apps in the same spaces however.

For Mac I spent $0.99 a long time ago and bought Magnet on the App Store which lets me move windows and resize using hotkeys. For windows I aggressively use windows key + left/right to move the windows around, with 4 displays you just have to remember their ordering and eventually it becomes muscle memory to get it to snap where you want it. It mostly moves left to right, in my case.

On linux i3 I've bound my workspaces to default to a monitor and my apps to default to a respective workspace. Very very productive

On KDE and things like opening app on active monitor / desktop work fine. Only complaint is that on older versions, the taskbar on secondary monitors would sometimes disappear.

For reference I have 3 monitors (2x 4k, 1x 1080p) and am currently using Debian / Wayland and Ubuntu / X11.

It was a bug. I have 3 screens, and it would disappear on the third. An update, sometime around middle of last year fixed it, if my memory is correct.

But, I still have occasional problems with my monitors not waking up when I return to my desk. With 3, I've never had all 3 fail to wake, and a simple disable in the monitor settings, then choose "revert" usually brings them back.

I really miss kde generator of shift click in maximize window icon. It would expand a window just vertically.

Does windows has anything similar?

Win+shift+up

Better

Double click on the edge on Windows :)

Nice! Just works in top and bottom edge

I generally don't close the applications i use on an ongoing basis :)

This way you only have to drag them to the monitor you want them on once on startup. Which on os x at least is not very often.

What fixed it for my was switching to Omarchy and using wayland (what it comes with). I don't bother very much with positioning or window resizing anymore. Give it a shot!

I'm using DisplayFusion on Windows and am very happy with it. Haven't found anything similar on Linux that works as well.

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