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Comment by joejohnson | Hacker News Reader

I am so happy to hear that OS X Mavericks will fix fullscreen apps across multiple displays!

How was it ever possible that this was broken in the first place ? Incredible. Stupefying.

Yeah, it's been frustrating.

My understanding is that the API presented control of all desktops to one application. An app could address displays individually and make full use of it.

Clearly that wasn't the right approach, but it wasn't as blatantly broken as everyone makes it out to be.

Most users don't use multiple displays. For the vast majority of users, nothing was broken. Also, the multiple-menubar thing illustrates that it's not exactly a simple or uncomplicated fix following the introduction of fullscreen app support.

I would think that Apple devs would use multiple monitors and would have coded the base functionality so that it made sense working.. Even Windows has had pretty decent multi-monitor support for about 5 years now.

Anyway, I look forward to proper multi-monitor support without have to purchase an expensive 3rd party add on, or manually resizing my windows on different screens.

I'm also hoping that like windows, OS-M will remember what apps are where when I plug in different screens (like home vs office).

Windows has had excellent multi-mon support since at least the XP era, (when I started using dual monitors at work and home in, I think Win98 wasn't that bad either), and to make you feel old, realize that WinXP has been out for 11 years.

I think it was a philosophy more than anything. Fullscreen is not just "taking up the whole screen", it's the idea that you are working on only one application. So if you are fullscreen on one screen, the other screens should be blanked out so they aren't a distraction.

Many disagreed with this philosophy, but that was why it was "broken."

And Spaces/Mission Control dragging of apps between multiple displays!

Basically they made someone actually use 2 monitors on Mountain Lion and said "Make a list of everything that sucks." Then they actually fixed it. Pretty simple.

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