“I liked the resolution of the 30-inch monitors, which is 2560 by 1600 pixels. That is 100.63 pixels per inch (PPI).” AND it was very easy on the eyes. My ten years old 30” seems to have blown a cap so I’m on the market for a new one. The 43” seems like a great alternative. Especially because 30” became only 50% cheaper over the 10 years, that means they are still (over) expensive.
No, take the opportunity to replace the cap! If you really just don't have the interest or the time, please give it someone that is willing to make the attempt. It's a great learning experience and maybe someone that couldn't afford a new one just got a good enough one on the cheap :)
I had 2 monitors before and a 32" 4K monitor now. Despite the large real estate, I don't feel that the increased vertical space is as good as the increased horizontal space.
I will be buying an ultrawide next time to see if those are indeed better than a 4K monitor.
> I like its menu system better, although its control buttons are inconveniently located on the back of the monitor instead of the front.
I have never touched the menus on my external displays since a few days after I acquired them, and I wouldn’t expect normal people to either except possibly to adjust brightness.
I adjust the brightness of the displays regularly (typically three or four times per day) from my laptop. Fun fact: Windows has two APIs for adjusting screen brightness, one of which only works for the internal display and one of which only works for the external displays; and sadly the brightness keys on the laptop are uninterceptable and I have not come up with any way of linking the brightnesses either. I went hunting and settled on some old freeware called ScreenBright which I can invoke from the command line, so that now I just run `b 0` for night time and `b 40` for most of the day (and up to 70% in certain seasons—but 100% is pretty much always too bright as the situation is not in direct sunlight); I have since also written a tiny Rust program that interacts with the APIs directly which could replace it.
I really wish external display brightness was better handled by computers and laptops.
I also yearn for the days of CRTs with physical brightness knobs that you could turn. So much simpler and more usable.
i don’t think a 43” display would even fit on my desk, and i think i would personally prefer two smaller displays, but i would whole heartedly recommend dell’s ultrasharp or similar displays to anyone who wasn’t lookin for super high fps gaming. their stands are some of the best (most adjustable and stable) i’ve seen and the panels themselves have great colour reproduction and a good resolution/ppi.
I don't see too much discussion about this fact, but I run a 1440p 144hz monitor and it's fantastic for programming. Testing myself in Vim, I actually move around and edit code faster with 144fps than 60fps. I'm not sure how big the benefits are overall, but I've recommended 144hz monitors to many people because of that.
Huh, now I’m kinda tempted to leave my 24” display behind when I do my upcoming move and get one of these. Maybe not the LG, what with the top comment on its page saying that it provides nowhere near enough power to keep a usb-c Mac powered, and a super slow usb bus...
I'm a big fan of multiple portrait-mode monitors. It makes organising multiple windows easy and the taller aspect ratio per screen is a natural fit for editing code and documents. It's not so great for CAD or graphics editing but still usable once you learn to tune out the bezels.
Currently I am running 3xDell U2412M in portrait for an effective resolution of 3600x1920. My next move will most likely be a 43" 4k+ monitor to replace them. A 30" is in a weird spot resolution wise but 4k over 43 is perfect for splitting the screen into 3 columns and 2 rows, or pulling up a code editor and seeing 108 lines of code without scrolling.
I am a colorist for movies and I prefer my Eizo CGxxxx over a cheap 4k display any time for programming.
Not only are the syntax highlighting colors less exhausting to look at, but despite less pixels you gain more clarity, which often has to do with the quality of the blacks.
On top of that I had only the best experience with Eizo Customer Support. Better than with any hardware manufacturer ever. On of the Eizos is running for over 15 years now without any issue and it still looks better than most modern displays.
I'm with you, here. That said, those are still a little bit above my budget. I generally buy the most color-accurate monitor that I can at a price point I can justify. Usually that's $600-700. This time around it was a LG 27UK850-W.
xmonad does a pretty good job splitting my screen into usable browser/application and terminal areas.
All that said, I'm using ZBrush a lot more lately and a Cintiq Pro 32 seems like it'd be pretty sweet.
The author lost me at "For programming I didn’t care about having a high pixel density..I wanted more text characters, not slightly smoother looking ones."
I guess it's just a personal preference, but my retina MBP's screen is so much easier on my eyes for long sessions than anything else I've ever used, and staring at a huge backlight like what he recommends seems like it'd be incredibly painful. I get all the "more text characters" I want out of a vertical monitor.
This. 4k matters much less for games and movies than for programming; it's hard to tell the difference when looking at moving images but the higher resolution changes everything when reading text. A high DPI screen puts much less strain on your eyes!
You can fake it by setting low zoom level. Far from perfect, you won't have pixel perfect results, but you'll get general overview how layout gonna work.
If it's UHD (3840x2160) it's going to be exact. If it's actual 4K (4096 × 2160) then it won't be sharp at Full HD resolution (1920x1080) because the pixels don't align.
Use the tools explicitly available for that purpose. Chrome, Firefox and Safari all have built-in responsive design modes with common resolutions available.
You don't have to test on your working setup. After all if you did mobile webpages, you wouldn't program on a smartphone!
If you did test there, you'd just tested one configuration (even if it's the most popular). There are services that allow you to test your web work in dozens of different configurations.
There are also Chrome tools etc to help you test different aspect rations and sizes. And you can always change the display to a non-native resolution.
4k users often use font scaling which makes things harder to compare to a standard full HD setup (different people use different font scaling options etc). When developers setup makes dogfooding more accurate (in terms of similarity to end hsers'), then more UI bugs are found sooner. Another thing is contrast and hue - many users use low quality screens (think office users) and they perceive the UI differently than a person on a high end monitor. Many subtleties are not visible at all.
> higher resolution changes everything when reading text. A high DPI screen puts much less strain on your eyes!
This may not be for everybody. I actually prefer low-resolution displays, and use beautiful bitmapped fonts (without need for "antialiasing"). It looks much cleaner to me.
Ditto. I stuck to 1650 x 900 for as long as I could, but alas, It's hard to get those monitors nowadays.
I've since switched to full HD-screens, zooming everything to 150%-200%. It's readable in most cases, but considerably less pretty than bitmapped fonts on a lower-res screen.
Is this really high DPI though? I think it has to do with font sharpness. What I've noticed is that Windows and Mac OS X both have poor font smoothing at normal DPIs - blurry fonts are the norm. When I swap to a modern Linux desktop however, the fonts look very good at regular DPI. The difference is apparent.
You can also prove the sharpness effect to yourself by using bitmap fonts - they will look great on regular DPI monitors on any OS.
For me, "blurry" ie. antialiased is much better, so long as it results in better defined letter forms, as it does on MacOS or when using freetype with hinting set to low or turned off. HiDPI simply means there's no tradeoff.
The use and magnitude of font hinting is largely what makes the difference. Windows used aggressive hinting until Windows 8, and it's also the default in many Linux distributions.
I work on a weekly base on Linux, Windows and MacOS; mostly Linux. HiDPI does make a huge difference for me, and I'd say even more so on Linux, where without HiDPI I suffer Firefox font rendering a lot (Chromium is a bit better).
Sure some smoothing algorithm might work better for you and ease the problem; same with bitmap fonts. But try printing some text at 96dpi and at 300dpi and compare it side by side. 96dpi is not enough for comfort, and for years we've been pretending it is since there was no viable alternative. There is now. Hurray!
I'm all for higher DPI screens, but you need to take into account that typical reading distance for screens is larger than for text on paper. It is not really DPI that counts but dots per angular distance as seen from the eye.
> I work on a weekly base on Linux, Windows and MacOS; mostly Linux. HiDPI does make a huge difference for me...
How good is Linux support for HiDPI these days? I've been delaying making the upgrade for a few years, waiting for better native support. Also, any idea if you can mix HiDPI screens with regular ones?
Recent Gnome works very well with all-HiDPI; I had to leave XFCE when I switched to HiDPI because it hadn't good support.
Recent is key here; I have been using Gnome in HiDPI mode for a couple of years but I had to do some tweaks to have it working well; now it seems to work more or less out of the box. Same holds for Qt based applications.
Mixed DPI screens kind of works, but there are hitches; I definitely suggest going all in.
I can't look into your wallet but the price difference between 4K and 2K is now so small that for our new office I bought 4K screens for everybody. Skimping on tools that you use every day for 8 hours is tough on the system in the longer run.
It depends a lot on where are you from and how experienced you are (which translates to how much money do you earn).
A tip from country where the price difference matters:
Look for a TV, not PC monitor. They're often cheaper while having the same ports to connect it to a computer. But beware - some of them have always-on overscan which means you will get blurry effect and cropped picture. Make sure you can disable that (look for overscan, PC mode or something like that) before buying. Testing it on laptop before buying seems to be a good idea too - my mother's TV has option to disable overscan, but only on old VGA input. On HDMI it is always on anyway.
I picked up a 4k TV (Vizio D40u-D1) as a monitor after quite a bit of research a year ago and I'm quite happy with it. It's a bit large at 40", but all I had to do was adapt to thinking of it as multiple floating screens, and treat it as such, given I have the equivalent of four 1080p screens... using almost the same amount of area.
My browser always occupies the lower left quadrant, and event at 1/4 of the total screen it's still 1080p, or maybe a little more since I eyeballed it and didn't dock it there. It's easy enough to make any terminal larger and then I'm essentially gaining the same benefit of high pixel density.
I wanted to make sure the TV I got supported 60Hz at 4k, and had low input lag (for when I play games occasionally), so I found rtings.com[1] to be invaluable. Using a TV as a monitor has it's quirks (I turn it on separately with the remote on the desk because it's easiest), but at just over $400 when I bought it on sale ($500 now[2]) for a 40" 4k monitor that has 13ms input lag, I'm not sure how I could have done better.
Edit: Had the amazon price wrong, was looking at the 1080p one.
Personally I’ve been opting for 2560x1440 for 27” and will continue to do so until 5k 27” has become the standard. 4K feels like an awkward compromise with its inability to render at 2x 2560x1440.
1440p is an awkward compromise with it's inability to render at 2x the dominant 1080p content. 5K if ever will become standart resolution wouldn't last long as "the next big thing" will be 8K and it's not so far in the future.
"2K" is usually used to describe 2560x1440 or similar monitors. I find these ideal personally. I don't notice much difference much from higher resolution than that, gaming at 4K requires high end hardware, and scaling between different resolution monitors is a pain.
1440p seems like a good sweet spot between the two. But yes, 2K is a silly name for it.
The term "2K" came from the film industry and meant 2048x1080 (cropped to 1998x1080 for a 1.85:1 aspect ratio) . When 1920x1080 started to show up these where generally grouped in under the "2K" banner. I've never heard anyone use the term 2K when discussing 2560x1440 monitors.
I'd personally just avoid using film spec terms for TV and computers and just stick to the old FullHD, Ultra Wide, UltraHD terms. Film tech is always a bit of an island doing their own thing for encoding, captions, hardware, etc.
Attaching terms like "2K" to a computer screen invokes legacy compatibility horror feelings for me.
For displays, <value>i and <value>p are used to indicate vertical resolution. For displays, <value>k is used to indicate approximate horizontal resolution. I've not seen any other usage.
For projectors, especially theater projectors, I have seen 2K used to refer to 2048 horizontal resolution, and 4K used to indicate 4096 horizontal resolution. Projectors do not have the same aspect ratio as monitors, however. DCI 2K is 2048x1080, while "2K" Full HD is 1920x1080. DCI 4K is 4096x2160, while UHD 4K is 3840x2160.
For film, 2k & 4K describe the horizontal resolution as you state, but the vertical resolution is determined by the aspect ratio (1.85, 2.35, 2.40, etc). HD & UHD are fixed to a 1.78/16x9 aspect ratio which explains the difference in widths.
Yes, but any recent film (in the US at least) should be following DCI resolutions if they want to work on a digital projector. The native resolution for 2K DCI is 2048x1080. If there's a different aspect ratio for a 2K film, then either the horizontal resolution will be 2048 or the vertical resolution with be 1080. Thus, 1.85:1 is 1998x1080, and 2.39:1 is 2048x858. Obviously, you can do something else if you want, but then it's not 2K DCI. It may be outside the digital projector's native display resolution. It would be like pushing a 1440p movie to a 1080p monitor. It's going to look weird even if it has the correct aspect ratio because of mandatory down scaling the monitor has to do.
You can't really have a 2K film whose resolution is larger than 2048x1080 if you're following the DCI spec, and AFAIK the DCI spec is the only spec that actually uses the name "2K" as the official name for the resolution. That's the only point I'm making.
I don't agree with the author, but I have to say that I don't get a big advantage from "retina"-grade displays for coding. For web browsing, reading PDFs etc, the increased density is useful (kinda), but for code itself, I don't get a huge benefit.
I don't get a lot more lines on the screen, so most of what the displays do for me is sharper font rendering. And that is a lot better with my current iMacs 5K display, but I got by fine with bitmapped, non-antialiased fonts on 24" displays. They were sharp in a different manner, and I personally don't mind the pixelation, as far as I can tell (I don't feel more tired more quickly f. ex.).
Having said that, I used a 24" display in portrait mode for a while, and ditched that as it required too much eye and neck movement. Now a 43" display is higher in landscape mode than former portrait display, so I would have the same issues (and pushed farther back would decrease the whole point, never mind that the back of the desk would be quickly reached).
My mom still has my original Dell 24" 1920x1200 display I bought way back when, and I'd have no trouble using that right now. Heck, I probably wouldn't fare too bad with an old IBM 1600x1200 monitor, or two of them.
I agree with you. Had to work in another office without my main rig and the monitors had low pixel density, a bad pair of bad monitors or something. It was not as sharp as my others. After a few hours it started to get to me. It felt like my eyes were not focusing when in fact it was the monitors. That is a bad feeling.
I often use a small, high res display (on a Surface Go, it's about 400 grams, and supr helpful when I need to fix production when out). Even if resolution isn't important to you, the ability to fit more things on screen is definitely a bonus of high res displays.
In fact his display is at about 100 ppi, which is not bad at all.
Using the "Is this retina?" page, OPs monitor becomes "retina" at 86cm. And looking at his setup, that's probably how far he sits. His screen is way back, beyond the edge of the desk.
The MBP screen has 220 ppi but it is designed to be viewed from much closer.
As for the backlight, then again, it is relative. In a well lit environment like in a typical office, it simply matches the ambiant light. In a dark room, you'll probably want a dark theme anyways.
However, if I remember correctly, these 5k displays are explicitly made for video editing. So that you can show a 1:1 4k frame with space around it for all the controls and toolbars. I think it is a special case where that high resolution is definitely justified.
> In fact his display is at about 100 ppi, which is not bad at all.
It's only slightly better than the rather abysmal 91 ppi of 1080p at 24", which many people will be familiar with. It's really not good and a long shot from proper high ppi displays.
I tried to use a 30" 4K screen at nominal resolution, but the type is too small for me at normal distances. I find that the sweet spot is a 40" 4K TV. If it's curved, it's slightly better.
The thing is, you should pick a monitor also by its PPI (Pixel-per-Inch). In order to work with HIDPI on macOS, you should stay around 220 PPI: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/
In theory, you should pick a 5K display, but there only a bunch of models to pick from and they cost a lot (some are not even manufactured anymore)
You don't buy high PPI displays for additional screen real estate. You buy them for the same screen real estate with much sharper, crisper text rendering.
You should always assume that you'll be scaling your image at 2x when using high ppi displays. Take the iMac 5K for example - it offers the same screen real estate as a 2560x1440 display, just twice as sharp at 220 PPI.
I feel like I've gotten pretty picky with monitors. Right now, I'm running two old 1080p IPS displays from years ago, and the reason why is because I have trouble choosing an upgrade:
- IPS or OLED would be preferable for the wider viewing angles, better color reproduction and significantly richer blacks vs TFT panels, but they cost more.
- High refresh rate panels offer a notable improvement in user experience. Even if '60hz is enough' that does not mean you cannot benefit from more, especially when it comes to lower latency and techniques like black frame insertion (which reduces ghosting.)
- Variable refresh rate is nice, too: in some circumstances (mostly gaming today I presume) it could basically eliminate stuttering and dropped frames. NVidia now supporting FreeSync to a degree makes this even more enticing.
- Higher pixel densities greatly improve text legibility and picture quality, which can be especially great when viewing denser glyphs such as Japanese kanji. Bonus points: at decent densities, subpixel rendering can be switched off.
- Curved/ultra-wide panels are fairly enticing because they might offer a solution to the problem of wanting a single optimal display for your line of sight, versus two smaller displays.
...but in reality:
- Panels satisfying even just a few of these constraints can be very expensive and few, if any, satisfy literally all of them.
- Operating system support for high pixel density varies. Linux can vary from surprisingly good to absolutely terrible depending largely on your setup, and Windows varies strongly, though it is a lot better in 10 than it ever has been. MacOS has relatively good DPI support.
- The combination of high refresh rate and high pixel density makes for heavy bandwidth usage requiring cutting edge display connector standards to be supported on your GPU. Some displays require multiple ports to be plugged in and this can be flaky and glitchy.
- High refresh rate support in OSes is also a bit messy. I've not tried but I've heard Windows DWM can be buggy especially in mixed refresh rate setups. I also believe variable refresh rate is mostly only useful in situations where you have a fullscreen application running, since not everything will push frames out at the same time.
- If you switch to a single display, versus multiple homogeneous or hetrogenous displays, you lose some utility. My dual display setup has a unique feature, in that it works together with my IOMMU passthrough. The right monitor is designated to whatever virtual machine has the secondary GPU attached. Display forwarding is handled with Looking Glass, so I don't need a physical output. However, I have it plugged into the physical output, which allows me to switch to it for lower latency/reduced screen tear/debugging/etc.
- Panels are still evolving at a decent pace. In a few years, OLED monitors may be superior to IPS monitors. Also, prices of cutting edge technology is definitely trending down in the monitor space. It just feels like it hasn't been a good time to buy.
So I sit here with my 1080p monitors. They may not be great, but they have good viewing angles, decent colors, and they were pretty cheap when I got them (it was around the time cheaper IPSes started to hit.) The market has plenty worth switching for, but there's so much more potential, and the user experience hasn't always kept up with the innovation here.
I agree with your comment. The OP is using a 43" TFT. I've had a TFT side by side with an IPS monitor, and I much prefer an IPS panel. I find it easier on the eyes.
I've a 27" iMac with a 5K display. I don't think I'd want anything larger as you're supposed to sit close to your display rather than have it at a distance, and if I ever need more screen real estate, I change the scaling factor in System Preferences.
Anyway, that was just to say that now I've gotten used to a HiDPI display with fantastic, accurate colour, I can't go back. I'm running a little low on funds and considered selling the iMac in favour of a 2018 Mac mini with a 24" 1080p display — can't do it.
I think a lot of people are spoilt by their Retina-display iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks; or their HiDPI Android phones and tablets. Now that I've been spoilt by a large Retina display, I'm ruined for anything else, even 4K at 43".
Yeah, can't go change back from my iMac Pro to anything else as well. I was used to a laptop for years (MacBook Pro Retina) before that, can't go back to that either.
When I was a remote worker I had in my office two 27 inch QHD screens and a 39 inch 4K screen in between them. This had the nice property that the pixel density was very close to the same, and so windows moving from one monitor to the other (on Windows or Mac) didn't change much. I didn't have a lot of success setting this up nicely on Linux. For me, it turned out that three monitors in landscape orientation was too far to turn my head -- I ended up either leaving the right or the left monitor essentially unused.
Where I work now, I have my laptop and a 34 inch 21:9 (1440p) curved screen. I was surprised to find the curved screen so agreeable, and only wish that it was somewhat larger and higher resolution. Might look at 21:9 (1600p) curved screens.
I’ve got a 5K 27” iMac with a 4K 24” external monitor and find I prefer two distinct (high resolution) panels rather than a vast one.
Being able to have individual workspaces on each (and switch between then with a two-finger swipe on the mouse) is a great way to switch between individual contexts.
I‘m closely watching the E-Ink monitor space. There is already one that looks promising, but it’s monochrome and small and there’s still a lot of lag: https://youtu.be/Laa-cN15uGI
I wouldn’t watch movies on that one, but it _could_ be fine for programming already.
With f.lux and macOS‘ dark mode I‘ve noticed how my eyes like low-light UIs better (probably because of lower blue light emission?), and I think an e-ink monitor would be almost zero-strain, just like reading a book.
Lag or monochrome I wouldn't mind, but I'd need at least 21+ inches... Ideally something like 27 :/. I too am watching the e-ink space for some cool monitors, but I think it's not gonna happen, at least not any time soon...
I am surprised how small is a number of people that use vertical (portrait) display setup (I do). I have always found vertical space much more necessary than horizontal space. Most workloads will not fill a wide-screen display, and arranging multiple windows horizontally is usually a pain (the only case where it works well for me is for comparing two code windows or data sets which are organized in lines - comparing horizontally works much better in this way), as is looking at them. Vertical arrangement works much better for me. Downside - most displays are not able to rotate. It's a simple thing to do, probably costs nothing, but finding a rotating model is a pain - most manufacturers won't even tell if it rotates, you have to guess from the look of it. I wish this scenario was better supported...
I stick to 80-character line limits, too, but I highly value the ability to have two (or more!) source files side-by-side on the same screen. It's like having two vertical monitors, but with just one horizontal one :)
I think it depends on the kind of programmer? As a web dev few of my files are more than double my screen height, so it's one keyhit to see the bottom. But, I usually want two or even three things widthwise - perhaps a JavaScript and template file, or css and the output, etc. My horizontal space is more valuable than my vertical.
Usually code works pretty fine for me (though sometimes I've had to fold some side panels). It gets a bit tricky with heavily nested code, because of indents, but this code usually needs refactoring for other reasons too :)
Just as a data point: I tried vertical display but didn't like it because I like to have two panels of code open next to each other on the same monitor a lot of the time.
E.g. if I'm calling a function I love to be able to have its definition up on the same screen at the same time. Also when writing commit messages, love to be able to have the diff up next to the COMMIT_EDITMSG.
Plus, now I think about it, I don't think I very often operate on functions that don't fit vertically on my landscape screen.
>I am surprised how small is a number of people that use vertical (portrait) display setup (I do). I have always found vertical space much more necessary than horizontal space
I've been on and off... The biggest issue I have with vertical is the difference in distance from my eyes to the text. Moving my head left/right is more natural than up/down.
Vertical is very nice for programming. But not great for other things (like putting two windows next to each other). In the past, my favorite setup was two vertical 30" next to each other but you need a fairly large desk for that. These days I just use a 32" in landscape and it's fine.
> Most workloads will not fill a wide-screen display, and arranging multiple windows horizontally is usually a pain
Ultra-wide screens can fix that. And using Windows' auto-arranging two windows side-by-side makes them perfect for the kind of workflows that require switching between 2 windows (web dev).
I hear you. In my office people have two 16:10 displays each. Everyone puts them side by side, making a long ribbon. A few people will setup main screen horizontally and second one vertically. Since I've got those with miniscule bezels I've set them up side by side, but vertically, one monitor 90° the other 270°. The result: almost square - 20:16 (2400x1920), in other words 5:4. I can see everything at glance, without awkwardly twisting my head.
Now, if I could only use tileing window manager with this setup...
2 horizontal, 1 vertical has always been my go to. Works with any arrangement /tasks you're doing. Having a mix of both is a must-have in my opinion, it gives you the widest flexbility of options.
Vertical monitor I usually use for taking nodes, referring to code, or splitting bottom / top. Horizontal monitors are great for watching videos or tutorials, or splitting left/right side.
I usually use 27" IPS monitors that can rotate as well, with VESA mount capability. Dell (U2415H) makes the best ones in my opinion, it's not the cheapest ($300 each), but if you're staring at a monitor all day long it's a cheap investment
I've been using 2 x 27" 1440x2560 (Dell U2715H) for 2 years now. (Dell monitors are typically a pretty safe purchase in this respect as all the mid range ones seem to come with rotating stand.) I've been very happy with this setup, and I've no intention of changing. It's a good aspect ratio for editing text and viewing PDFs and whatnot, and makes very efficient use of desk space. My 2 portrait monitors are only about 12 cm wider than one landscape one.
I also don't understand why more people don't use it - but perhaps people try it out with a 1080p monitor, find it a bit cramped, and decide against it. (I used 1200x1920 monitors for a while, and the screens always felt a bit too narrow even with that. A lot of programs and sites seem to assume you've got a monitor that's at least 1280 pixels wide, so you end up with extra scroll bars, cramped UI, or stuff that's simply inaccessible.)
Yes, I also found Dell is pretty good in rotating display game (my latest display is Dell). I do encounter some sites which are to wide for 1080, but it's not too often.
I sit about 1m away from the screen, so I don't have to move my neck much anyway.
I do still find the full height a bit much, so I typically have each screen split half and half, or one third and two thirds. Depending on what I'm doing and which program(s) I'm using, this either means two windows, and I use a window layout program to arrange things, or one window split into panels, and I just put the split points where I want them.
(3 x 1/3 is also quite usable - 3 x 1440x850. On some laptops, that's about all you get in total...)
I’ve been told my desk setup looks silly, but I use two 34” ultra-wides (LG 34UM95) rotated vertically flanking two 27” Apple Cinema Displays stacked horizontally. It’s absolutely perfect for my coding needs.
Be careful with subpixel rendering settings. On a rotated display you have to rotate the subpixel order but for some reason X can't do that (there is just a global one for the whole desktop), so you'd have to manually setup 2 X screens.
With a wide 23-27" horizontal display, you can have multiple code windows arranged next to each other on the same monitor. Vertical displays let you see more text on one listing of course, but they're not as good for putting two code windows next to each other.
LG 5K UltraFine from the Apple Store is where it’s at. The thing is like reading printed text on backlit glass. It’s so nice to program on I can’t stand anything else.
I didn’t understand the eye strain I was putting up with till I bought this thing.
I love this screen, too. Sometimes a bit more real estate than its 27 inches could be useful. But my biggest gripe is really that my late 2016 Macbook Pro with a 2GB Radeon Pro 450 often seems to have too little horse power to drive all these pixels smoothly....
I have a 43" 4K Viewsonic as my primary display and it does work pretty well. I actually wanted something between 32" and 43" but there are basically no options for 4K displays in that range. I'd like to try something around 36-37" if it existed and I wish I'd been able to find a matte panel at this size but overall I'm pretty happy with it. Previously I was using a 32" and it was usable at 100% in Windows but some text was a little small.
On its own it fits comfortably on my desk but my second display is a 27" and I have to put it in portrait to fit both with my current desk setup.
Dude writes a massive article on monitors but Willy nilly strews his windows across the display, with random sized gaps between them. Gives me a bit of a chuckle - to each their own but I obsess over getting every pixel of real estate my display offers me, so I always thought it was odd to peer over a coworker's shoulder and see something like the first image in this blog.
I use a MBP now, but I've never understood why a lot of macOS users seem to be happy doing that. Back when I was on Linux, I preferred how easy it was to use i3 or awesome or whatever WM would tile the windows so all the screen real estate maxed out according to the work layout I preferred at the time.
macOS' window management is still so remarkably bad. In fact it might even be worse than ever for me now; I used to be able to install some kind of "keep window afloat" hack, but the ability to do that disappeared with one of the version updates. I just try to keep everything in tmux these days and avoid the UI altogether.
You should try Slate (https://github.com/jigish/slate), it's great for window management once it's set up. I have hotkeys for positioning windows top-, bottom-, left-, and right halves, move windows to the right or left monitor and for displaying a grid that let you define the size and position of the current window by marking an area in the grid. It needs the Accessibility API, though, which may be an issue if your employer doesn't allow sudo access on their computers. Here's my dotfile: https://github.com/Jonasmst/dotfiles/blob/master/.slate
Thanks, I hadn't heard of this and it's an interesting project. One problem, though, is that if you're like me and a heavy user of iTerm2/tmux, Spectacle seems a bit jittery while it's trying to match the terminal window to the desired window dimensions.
I acknowledge that - though I'm being presumptive and calling that "failing to maximize tool effectiveness."
I have to stay organized because I have a dumb and chaotic brain. If I used the default osx windows management, er, "system" such as it were, I probably would get done a tenth of what I get done today on my Gnome setup.
Personally, I find things to be easier for my brain when there's a clear space between windows. Not nearly as extreme as in the article, sure, but I felt sufficiently in need of window gaps that I actually hacked them into my StumpWM config back before I switched to herbstluftwm (which is - you guessed it - configured with gaps).
I used to be like that. Then I switched to a 40" 4k TV as a monitor a year (or two?) ago. You quickly find that it works best less as a small display into some large space (as you might view a virtual desktop view) and more like a chunk of the wall in front of you has become much more dynamic.
It's much harder to see it all at once, so you end up just treating it as a free floating space to organize things, much like a real desktop (do you layer all your items our to maximize used space on physical desks as well?).
While not working, I'll spend most the time with a browser window utilizing slightly more than a quarter of the screen towards the bottom left, and not much else, maybe some small transient file folder windows.
While working, I keep the browser, but I add a few large terminal windows. Usually one mostly upper center, bottom right, but the upper center one might overlap other windows slightly (because why not? I can make it large without slight overlap and very little loss of passive usefulness of other windows).
It's fairly liberating. I now view tight control and maximizing utilized space as a response to lack of space, which is no longer my problem. In the beginning, I wasn't sure if I was going to regret this, and was looking for utilities to set screen areas that I could maximize to, or save presets for certain applications. Then I just let go, and it's been wonderful ever since.
If you're interested, I still recommend the TV I got (or something better maybe now). It's got low input lag (~13ms) and does 60hz at 4k, all for about $500 at Amazon[1] (I think it was ~$400 when I got it on sale).
> It's much harder to see it all at once, so you end up just treating it as a free floating space to organize things, much like a real desktop (do you layer all your items our to maximize used space on physical desks as well?).
If it wouldn't take ages to properly align paper with a 1mm border but they would magically align themselves - yes of course I would :)
Not that I work a lot with paper anymore, but I see no advantage of not aligning stuff in the real world just like a tiling wm would...
> Not that I work a lot with paper anymore, but I see no advantage of not aligning stuff in the real world just like a tiling wm would...
That depends on how you like to switch windows. Virtual windows can do one thing that papers can't, they can magically move themselves in the Z space. If you size/space your windows so that no matter what Z order things are in, there is always part of every window visible, you can VERY quickly click on that part to bring that window to the front.
Yes, I know tiling WMs can give you awesome keybindings... but some people like using the mouse or work for shitty companies that don't allow WM installs.
The analogy breaks down a bit, because it's not easy to stretch papers to different sizes as needed. I used to do this much less often, either because it was maximized or it cut into the space I had allocated for something else. Now I'll just resize a terminal much larger temporarily if I'm looking at lohs where it's beneficial (but wouldn't be all that useful for coding sessions), or pop out a new browser winder to make it larger (a video of some sort, etc).
Since space is less constrained, the size of thugs ends up being much more fluid. Once you end up using many different sizes of things (do I still need ed to see that terminal while watching some video waiting for it to finish? Maybe the size is slightly different to account for that) spending time to accurately place everything very quickly hits diminishing returns past one or two core apps.
Do the edges of the content fall under the bezel (i.e., get cut off by the frame)? I used to have that problem with 1080p TVs, so I switched back to monitors for everything other than entertainment.
Tiling window managers are not the silver bullet they are often made out to be IMO.
I used tiling window managers for quite a while — two years at least, maybe even for four years.
There are several factors that made me abandon tiling window managers.
The main thing though is that I look at and work in a lot of different combinations of windows.
And often multiple of those windows are big enough that they wouldn’t tile together. But with floating windows I can easily drag them around so that the parts of current concern within each window are visible and I have a total overview.
When I was using tiling window managers I used to believe that I was being smart and efficient by doing so. It turned out for me that actually floating windows give me more freedom.
What matters, I found out, is not how efficiently I can pack windows on the screen to avoid “wasted space” (as tiling window managers help you do), but how easily I can rearrange arbitrarily windows to give me the total picture I need while I am thinking.
I was super into tiling window managers for awhile, but now I'm firmly in the floating camp.
My local optimum was reached when I started using virtual desktops, one for each window, with each window fullscreen. A fullscreen terminal +tmux is where I do most of my work.
I don't see it as any different than "Massive 8GB of RAM, but willy nilly allocates JS objects all over (with a GC!)". I always thought the main point of having increasing specs is to have the luxury of not needing to obsess over every byte, or pixel.
Nobody except Chuck Moore pushes every piece of hardware to 100% of its capacity at all times. It's always easier to get beefier hardware than to be perfectly strict at all times.
I have a 34 inch LG 4k monitor cost about 400$, connected to my laptop. My only wish was if it was curved.
I eyeballed with the UHD ultrawide curved one but it was too pricy :)
Edit: funny, that when the heating automation for my home turns on with some electromagnetic switch, my screen goes black for a second or glitches the image. I suspect the USB-C > display port converter.
iMac Pro 5k,
LG 5K,
Dell Ultrasharp 4K 27” in vertical layout/stand.
It’s very difficult to go back once you use a retina/5k screen. No ultra-wide, 4K etc can compare in font rendering. I’d replace the Dell if the LG or iMac weren’t so expensive.
I solved a problem with resolution just recently, on older macbooks. I refuse to give up my 2012 Retina macbook until it's dead in the water. Connecting a 4K monitor through HDMI didn't work: it either didn't wake up from sleep, randomly switched itself off or sometimes flat refused to connect. Displayport didn't give me 4K resolution. Fortunately I found SwitchResX[1]. $10 saved me from lugging my giant new 4k monitor back to the store - it lets me use the DisplayPort at high resolutions. I now have up to 3840x2160 though unless I'm working on media, I'm happier at 2560x1440.
> The Dell is more expensive, but it feels better built, with a nicer stand with more adjustments and some cable routing.
The Dell is ALSO non-glossy, so that might be a big factor for some people. This article is timely for me, as I'm about to buy the Dell 43" 4K to replace my ageing Dell 24" (1920x1200).
Like the author, I want more screen space for my windows (I never run apps maximised) and I do not see the point in buying a smaller 4K monitor, and then running the OS at HIDPI 200% scaling - if you are going to do that you might as well save some money and just get a 1080p monitor instead, as other than smoother fonts, you wouldn't be gaining anything. Additionally, the PPI needs to match my current PPI as my ageing eyes can't do smaller text/icons without glasses, and I hate wearing glasses when I compute, as they make the screen and all it's contents all fishbowly[1] in shape.
--
[1] Is this a word? What a better word for where the edges of the screen become bowed-out ?
> What a better word for where the edges of the screen become bowed-out?
like looking through a fisheye lens? just distortion, and sounds like your prescription needs checking as your brain should compensate for distortion from vision corrections (up to a point).
Oh OK thanks. I don't wear the glasses that often. I have astigmatism which is worst in my left eye. Does it take long for my eyes to compensate? When they do does that mean I have to wear the glasses for screen work all the time? All questions, I've struggled to find consistent answers on.
200 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 237 ms ] threadI will be buying an ultrawide next time to see if those are indeed better than a 4K monitor.
I have never touched the menus on my external displays since a few days after I acquired them, and I wouldn’t expect normal people to either except possibly to adjust brightness.
I adjust the brightness of the displays regularly (typically three or four times per day) from my laptop. Fun fact: Windows has two APIs for adjusting screen brightness, one of which only works for the internal display and one of which only works for the external displays; and sadly the brightness keys on the laptop are uninterceptable and I have not come up with any way of linking the brightnesses either. I went hunting and settled on some old freeware called ScreenBright which I can invoke from the command line, so that now I just run `b 0` for night time and `b 40` for most of the day (and up to 70% in certain seasons—but 100% is pretty much always too bright as the situation is not in direct sunlight); I have since also written a tiny Rust program that interacts with the APIs directly which could replace it.
I really wish external display brightness was better handled by computers and laptops.
I also yearn for the days of CRTs with physical brightness knobs that you could turn. So much simpler and more usable.
I wish desktops had even a passing thought about display brightness, ditto for TV manufacturers.
(https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-43UD79-B-4k-uhd-led-monito...)
Not only are the syntax highlighting colors less exhausting to look at, but despite less pixels you gain more clarity, which often has to do with the quality of the blacks.
On top of that I had only the best experience with Eizo Customer Support. Better than with any hardware manufacturer ever. On of the Eizos is running for over 15 years now without any issue and it still looks better than most modern displays.
xmonad does a pretty good job splitting my screen into usable browser/application and terminal areas.
All that said, I'm using ZBrush a lot more lately and a Cintiq Pro 32 seems like it'd be pretty sweet.
I guess it's just a personal preference, but my retina MBP's screen is so much easier on my eyes for long sessions than anything else I've ever used, and staring at a huge backlight like what he recommends seems like it'd be incredibly painful. I get all the "more text characters" I want out of a vertical monitor.
But many monitors have Marketing 4K which is UHD.
Or you can just resize the browser window :)
If you did test there, you'd just tested one configuration (even if it's the most popular). There are services that allow you to test your web work in dozens of different configurations.
There are also Chrome tools etc to help you test different aspect rations and sizes. And you can always change the display to a non-native resolution.
More users are now on mobile, with high res displays.
This may not be for everybody. I actually prefer low-resolution displays, and use beautiful bitmapped fonts (without need for "antialiasing"). It looks much cleaner to me.
I've since switched to full HD-screens, zooming everything to 150%-200%. It's readable in most cases, but considerably less pretty than bitmapped fonts on a lower-res screen.
You can also prove the sharpness effect to yourself by using bitmap fonts - they will look great on regular DPI monitors on any OS.
Sure some smoothing algorithm might work better for you and ease the problem; same with bitmap fonts. But try printing some text at 96dpi and at 300dpi and compare it side by side. 96dpi is not enough for comfort, and for years we've been pretending it is since there was no viable alternative. There is now. Hurray!
How good is Linux support for HiDPI these days? I've been delaying making the upgrade for a few years, waiting for better native support. Also, any idea if you can mix HiDPI screens with regular ones?
Recent is key here; I have been using Gnome in HiDPI mode for a couple of years but I had to do some tweaks to have it working well; now it seems to work more or less out of the box. Same holds for Qt based applications.
Mixed DPI screens kind of works, but there are hitches; I definitely suggest going all in.
Standard 1080p monitors seem so bad with text, and once you plop them next to an MBP Retina screen the difference is extremely pronounced,
A tip from country where the price difference matters: Look for a TV, not PC monitor. They're often cheaper while having the same ports to connect it to a computer. But beware - some of them have always-on overscan which means you will get blurry effect and cropped picture. Make sure you can disable that (look for overscan, PC mode or something like that) before buying. Testing it on laptop before buying seems to be a good idea too - my mother's TV has option to disable overscan, but only on old VGA input. On HDMI it is always on anyway.
Why the hell do we need overscan for anything that isn't an actual analog TV signal?
My browser always occupies the lower left quadrant, and event at 1/4 of the total screen it's still 1080p, or maybe a little more since I eyeballed it and didn't dock it there. It's easy enough to make any terminal larger and then I'm essentially gaining the same benefit of high pixel density.
I wanted to make sure the TV I got supported 60Hz at 4k, and had low input lag (for when I play games occasionally), so I found rtings.com[1] to be invaluable. Using a TV as a monitor has it's quirks (I turn it on separately with the remote on the desk because it's easiest), but at just over $400 when I bought it on sale ($500 now[2]) for a 40" 4k monitor that has 13ms input lag, I'm not sure how I could have done better.
Edit: Had the amazon price wrong, was looking at the 1080p one.
1: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/vizio/d-series-4k-2016
2: https://www.amazon.com/VIZIO-D40-D1-Class-Array-Smart/dp/B01...
edit: typo
1440p seems like a good sweet spot between the two. But yes, 2K is a silly name for it.
Attaching terms like "2K" to a computer screen invokes legacy compatibility horror feelings for me.
For displays, <value>i and <value>p are used to indicate vertical resolution. For displays, <value>k is used to indicate approximate horizontal resolution. I've not seen any other usage.
For projectors, especially theater projectors, I have seen 2K used to refer to 2048 horizontal resolution, and 4K used to indicate 4096 horizontal resolution. Projectors do not have the same aspect ratio as monitors, however. DCI 2K is 2048x1080, while "2K" Full HD is 1920x1080. DCI 4K is 4096x2160, while UHD 4K is 3840x2160.
You can't really have a 2K film whose resolution is larger than 2048x1080 if you're following the DCI spec, and AFAIK the DCI spec is the only spec that actually uses the name "2K" as the official name for the resolution. That's the only point I'm making.
I don't get a lot more lines on the screen, so most of what the displays do for me is sharper font rendering. And that is a lot better with my current iMacs 5K display, but I got by fine with bitmapped, non-antialiased fonts on 24" displays. They were sharp in a different manner, and I personally don't mind the pixelation, as far as I can tell (I don't feel more tired more quickly f. ex.).
Having said that, I used a 24" display in portrait mode for a while, and ditched that as it required too much eye and neck movement. Now a 43" display is higher in landscape mode than former portrait display, so I would have the same issues (and pushed farther back would decrease the whole point, never mind that the back of the desk would be quickly reached).
My mom still has my original Dell 24" 1920x1200 display I bought way back when, and I'd have no trouble using that right now. Heck, I probably wouldn't fare too bad with an old IBM 1600x1200 monitor, or two of them.
> I wanted more text characters
I often use a small, high res display (on a Surface Go, it's about 400 grams, and supr helpful when I need to fix production when out). Even if resolution isn't important to you, the ability to fit more things on screen is definitely a bonus of high res displays.
Using the "Is this retina?" page, OPs monitor becomes "retina" at 86cm. And looking at his setup, that's probably how far he sits. His screen is way back, beyond the edge of the desk.
The MBP screen has 220 ppi but it is designed to be viewed from much closer.
As for the backlight, then again, it is relative. In a well lit environment like in a typical office, it simply matches the ambiant light. In a dark room, you'll probably want a dark theme anyways.
However, if I remember correctly, these 5k displays are explicitly made for video editing. So that you can show a 1:1 4k frame with space around it for all the controls and toolbars. I think it is a special case where that high resolution is definitely justified.
It's only slightly better than the rather abysmal 91 ppi of 1080p at 24", which many people will be familiar with. It's really not good and a long shot from proper high ppi displays.
In theory, you should pick a 5K display, but there only a bunch of models to pick from and they cost a lot (some are not even manufactured anymore)
You should always assume that you'll be scaling your image at 2x when using high ppi displays. Take the iMac 5K for example - it offers the same screen real estate as a 2560x1440 display, just twice as sharp at 220 PPI.
- IPS or OLED would be preferable for the wider viewing angles, better color reproduction and significantly richer blacks vs TFT panels, but they cost more.
- High refresh rate panels offer a notable improvement in user experience. Even if '60hz is enough' that does not mean you cannot benefit from more, especially when it comes to lower latency and techniques like black frame insertion (which reduces ghosting.)
- Variable refresh rate is nice, too: in some circumstances (mostly gaming today I presume) it could basically eliminate stuttering and dropped frames. NVidia now supporting FreeSync to a degree makes this even more enticing.
- Higher pixel densities greatly improve text legibility and picture quality, which can be especially great when viewing denser glyphs such as Japanese kanji. Bonus points: at decent densities, subpixel rendering can be switched off.
- Curved/ultra-wide panels are fairly enticing because they might offer a solution to the problem of wanting a single optimal display for your line of sight, versus two smaller displays.
...but in reality:
- Panels satisfying even just a few of these constraints can be very expensive and few, if any, satisfy literally all of them.
- Operating system support for high pixel density varies. Linux can vary from surprisingly good to absolutely terrible depending largely on your setup, and Windows varies strongly, though it is a lot better in 10 than it ever has been. MacOS has relatively good DPI support.
- The combination of high refresh rate and high pixel density makes for heavy bandwidth usage requiring cutting edge display connector standards to be supported on your GPU. Some displays require multiple ports to be plugged in and this can be flaky and glitchy.
- High refresh rate support in OSes is also a bit messy. I've not tried but I've heard Windows DWM can be buggy especially in mixed refresh rate setups. I also believe variable refresh rate is mostly only useful in situations where you have a fullscreen application running, since not everything will push frames out at the same time.
- If you switch to a single display, versus multiple homogeneous or hetrogenous displays, you lose some utility. My dual display setup has a unique feature, in that it works together with my IOMMU passthrough. The right monitor is designated to whatever virtual machine has the secondary GPU attached. Display forwarding is handled with Looking Glass, so I don't need a physical output. However, I have it plugged into the physical output, which allows me to switch to it for lower latency/reduced screen tear/debugging/etc.
- Panels are still evolving at a decent pace. In a few years, OLED monitors may be superior to IPS monitors. Also, prices of cutting edge technology is definitely trending down in the monitor space. It just feels like it hasn't been a good time to buy.
So I sit here with my 1080p monitors. They may not be great, but they have good viewing angles, decent colors, and they were pretty cheap when I got them (it was around the time cheaper IPSes started to hit.) The market has plenty worth switching for, but there's so much more potential, and the user experience hasn't always kept up with the innovation here.
Anyway, that was just to say that now I've gotten used to a HiDPI display with fantastic, accurate colour, I can't go back. I'm running a little low on funds and considered selling the iMac in favour of a 2018 Mac mini with a 24" 1080p display — can't do it.
I think a lot of people are spoilt by their Retina-display iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks; or their HiDPI Android phones and tablets. Now that I've been spoilt by a large Retina display, I'm ruined for anything else, even 4K at 43".
Where I work now, I have my laptop and a 34 inch 21:9 (1440p) curved screen. I was surprised to find the curved screen so agreeable, and only wish that it was somewhat larger and higher resolution. Might look at 21:9 (1600p) curved screens.
Being able to have individual workspaces on each (and switch between then with a two-finger swipe on the mouse) is a great way to switch between individual contexts.
I wouldn’t watch movies on that one, but it _could_ be fine for programming already.
With f.lux and macOS‘ dark mode I‘ve noticed how my eyes like low-light UIs better (probably because of lower blue light emission?), and I think an e-ink monitor would be almost zero-strain, just like reading a book.
I would even like it on my mobile. I don't need a brighter screen I need a readable screen.
But right now I like my ultra-wide monitor for programming. All panels open but still space to code.
E.g. if I'm calling a function I love to be able to have its definition up on the same screen at the same time. Also when writing commit messages, love to be able to have the diff up next to the COMMIT_EDITMSG.
Plus, now I think about it, I don't think I very often operate on functions that don't fit vertically on my landscape screen.
Try DAW or NLE work...
I tried to run with a configuration like this recently, but it didn't work out for me.
so far the best setup that works with me is 3 monitors: 1x landscape (left) and 2x portrait (right)
using something like Spectacle [0] to arrange the windows quickly
VSCode spread on the 2 portraits in a grid (2x2) layout is pretty roomy
I found out that 25" monitors work better than 27" (too high and not wide enough in portrait)
I like the Dell UtlraSharp but YMMV
[0]: https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle
Ultra-wide screens can fix that. And using Windows' auto-arranging two windows side-by-side makes them perfect for the kind of workflows that require switching between 2 windows (web dev).
Now, if I could only use tileing window manager with this setup...
Vertical monitor I usually use for taking nodes, referring to code, or splitting bottom / top. Horizontal monitors are great for watching videos or tutorials, or splitting left/right side.
I usually use 27" IPS monitors that can rotate as well, with VESA mount capability. Dell (U2415H) makes the best ones in my opinion, it's not the cheapest ($300 each), but if you're staring at a monitor all day long it's a cheap investment
I also don't understand why more people don't use it - but perhaps people try it out with a 1080p monitor, find it a bit cramped, and decide against it. (I used 1200x1920 monitors for a while, and the screens always felt a bit too narrow even with that. A lot of programs and sites seem to assume you've got a monitor that's at least 1280 pixels wide, so you end up with extra scroll bars, cramped UI, or stuff that's simply inaccessible.)
I was thinking about something similar but I am a bit concerned about having to move my head up and down to be able to focus on the entire screen.
I do still find the full height a bit much, so I typically have each screen split half and half, or one third and two thirds. Depending on what I'm doing and which program(s) I'm using, this either means two windows, and I use a window layout program to arrange things, or one window split into panels, and I just put the split points where I want them.
(3 x 1/3 is also quite usable - 3 x 1440x850. On some laptops, that's about all you get in total...)
I didn’t understand the eye strain I was putting up with till I bought this thing.
It is totally awesome, really crisp and the curve makes a noticeable difference on the desk to bring the edges in.
Cost AUD$500 plus delivery, extremely hard to beat at that price.
Plus I have a 32 inch 3K landscape and a 24 inch HD portrait, set up emails and whatsapp web on the 24 inch and do work on the other two.
On its own it fits comfortably on my desk but my second display is a 27" and I have to put it in portrait to fit both with my current desk setup.
I have to stay organized because I have a dumb and chaotic brain. If I used the default osx windows management, er, "system" such as it were, I probably would get done a tenth of what I get done today on my Gnome setup.
It's much harder to see it all at once, so you end up just treating it as a free floating space to organize things, much like a real desktop (do you layer all your items our to maximize used space on physical desks as well?).
While not working, I'll spend most the time with a browser window utilizing slightly more than a quarter of the screen towards the bottom left, and not much else, maybe some small transient file folder windows.
While working, I keep the browser, but I add a few large terminal windows. Usually one mostly upper center, bottom right, but the upper center one might overlap other windows slightly (because why not? I can make it large without slight overlap and very little loss of passive usefulness of other windows).
It's fairly liberating. I now view tight control and maximizing utilized space as a response to lack of space, which is no longer my problem. In the beginning, I wasn't sure if I was going to regret this, and was looking for utilities to set screen areas that I could maximize to, or save presets for certain applications. Then I just let go, and it's been wonderful ever since.
If you're interested, I still recommend the TV I got (or something better maybe now). It's got low input lag (~13ms) and does 60hz at 4k, all for about $500 at Amazon[1] (I think it was ~$400 when I got it on sale).
1: https://www.amazon.com/VIZIO-D40-D1-Class-Array-Smart/dp/B01...
If it wouldn't take ages to properly align paper with a 1mm border but they would magically align themselves - yes of course I would :)
Not that I work a lot with paper anymore, but I see no advantage of not aligning stuff in the real world just like a tiling wm would...
That depends on how you like to switch windows. Virtual windows can do one thing that papers can't, they can magically move themselves in the Z space. If you size/space your windows so that no matter what Z order things are in, there is always part of every window visible, you can VERY quickly click on that part to bring that window to the front.
Yes, I know tiling WMs can give you awesome keybindings... but some people like using the mouse or work for shitty companies that don't allow WM installs.
Since space is less constrained, the size of thugs ends up being much more fluid. Once you end up using many different sizes of things (do I still need ed to see that terminal while watching some video waiting for it to finish? Maybe the size is slightly different to account for that) spending time to accurately place everything very quickly hits diminishing returns past one or two core apps.
I used tiling window managers for quite a while — two years at least, maybe even for four years.
There are several factors that made me abandon tiling window managers.
The main thing though is that I look at and work in a lot of different combinations of windows.
And often multiple of those windows are big enough that they wouldn’t tile together. But with floating windows I can easily drag them around so that the parts of current concern within each window are visible and I have a total overview.
When I was using tiling window managers I used to believe that I was being smart and efficient by doing so. It turned out for me that actually floating windows give me more freedom.
What matters, I found out, is not how efficiently I can pack windows on the screen to avoid “wasted space” (as tiling window managers help you do), but how easily I can rearrange arbitrarily windows to give me the total picture I need while I am thinking.
My local optimum was reached when I started using virtual desktops, one for each window, with each window fullscreen. A fullscreen terminal +tmux is where I do most of my work.
Nobody except Chuck Moore pushes every piece of hardware to 100% of its capacity at all times. It's always easier to get beefier hardware than to be perfectly strict at all times.
I eyeballed with the UHD ultrawide curved one but it was too pricy :)
Edit: funny, that when the heating automation for my home turns on with some electromagnetic switch, my screen goes black for a second or glitches the image. I suspect the USB-C > display port converter.
iMac Pro 5k, LG 5K, Dell Ultrasharp 4K 27” in vertical layout/stand.
It’s very difficult to go back once you use a retina/5k screen. No ultra-wide, 4K etc can compare in font rendering. I’d replace the Dell if the LG or iMac weren’t so expensive.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ixw62l5pg3c34xx/AAAi_yWrGIF3Solee...
[1] SwitchResX: http://www.madrau.com/
The Dell is ALSO non-glossy, so that might be a big factor for some people. This article is timely for me, as I'm about to buy the Dell 43" 4K to replace my ageing Dell 24" (1920x1200).
Like the author, I want more screen space for my windows (I never run apps maximised) and I do not see the point in buying a smaller 4K monitor, and then running the OS at HIDPI 200% scaling - if you are going to do that you might as well save some money and just get a 1080p monitor instead, as other than smoother fonts, you wouldn't be gaining anything. Additionally, the PPI needs to match my current PPI as my ageing eyes can't do smaller text/icons without glasses, and I hate wearing glasses when I compute, as they make the screen and all it's contents all fishbowly[1] in shape.
--
[1] Is this a word? What a better word for where the edges of the screen become bowed-out ?
like looking through a fisheye lens? just distortion, and sounds like your prescription needs checking as your brain should compensate for distortion from vision corrections (up to a point).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion_(optics)