I can't agree more. Sure, there are legit uses for a huge screen (displaying several windows at the same time), but the developer need to focus, focus , focus.
Yes, there are many cases where a lot of space is needed. Like three-way merge ideally needs triple the width of normal code. There are many other use cases - keeping the jenkins build in peripheral vision, having terminal open with running logs, having browser open containing reference / documentation etc. Switching windows is a productivity killer.
For me it's ultrawide. I'm using a 34" display at 3440x1440. I can have two "full size" windows side-by-side. (Full size meaning they each feel about as large as they did on my 15" MacBook display).
3 work the best for me. Debugging an API on monitor 1, VSCode on monitor 2, browser with the frontend rendered on 3. I could also use a 4th for the browser dev console. (Full stack development)
This article is a good reminder that there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all. His setup would be horrible for me. I currently have three 1920x1080 monitors in an L configuration (two in the middle, one to the right) and it works great for me- because I need to see a lot of windows at once. I tell everyone I work with "you need at least two monitors" because for our work, it's true. Clearly a different case with OP.
Very generally, what is your work? If some part of it is "monitoring", maybe some metrics or live orders of some kind then having it permanently on another monitor is a no brainer.
I generally do all my work on one screen and keep email / teams / Spotify on the laptop screen.
I work in the high end managed WordPress industry as Customer Success Manager. At any moment I have Slack, Tickets, Live Chat, Shell to several servers, and my server monitoring system up. ADHD means "out of sight out of mind" and so it's all visible all the time.
You know, it's funny. I believe I'm similar to you in this department. I use a giant 4K monitor as an ADHD mitigation tool.
But I used to work with another guy. Also ADHD. And he said he absolutely had to restrict himself to smaller, single screens, in order to focus because looking at multiple windows at once was anathema to his ADHD.
Just doubly reinforces how unique brains are. Even with the same diagnosis, different strategies.
I tightly control the amount of context switching I do since you can get derailed by them, for much the same reason. I don't think I have ADHD but I certainly struggle with attention, and that is a strategy I use. Every alt+tab/window switch is an opportunity for me to lose my train of thought.
Interesting, but this is avery specific condition (on top of every one is individual) vs a generalizing advice "you need at least two monitors" because for our work, it's true."
And not wanting to tell you it is wrong if this works great for you, but tbh I wouldn't see the necessity in this setup for multiple monitors, by your first post had assumed a very different kind of work ;)
I don't like having two monitors side by side because I find myself looking not-straight for too many hours of the day at my 'primary' monitor. I too used to use an _| shape with one in the centre and one tall one on the side.
Now I use a 43" 4k monitor and use most of the middle 2/3rds. I would use an extra wide monitor but they're made excessively wide & short. When playing games I can use 2560x1440 @59 Hz and the monitor knows to do 1:1 pixels so it's only using the centre of the display. I'm not so hardcore I need higher refresh rates--though the buttery smooth scrolling on new Macbooks is nice.
I have a similar setup to this, with a Thinkpad x230 and a budget 1600x900 HP monitor, and I also use dwm. The second monitor allows me to work with items that I don't need to interact with frequently.
For example, I can display the PDF output of a LaTeX document on one monitor while keeping vim and a PDF of a book I'm reading on the other monitor. If I only had one monitor, my productivity would suffer because I would have to constantly switch between windows.
Dwm can be nice to use, but like 99% of tiling window managers it's a dynamic one and after years of use I find those rather impractical. I don't get the appeal of every window on screen rearranging and resizing just because I opened a terminal, it's more chaotic than anything else.
My favorite so far was stumpwm, which lets you statically split the screen in any way and then have a stack of windows in every segment. Works fine on every display size or number, all windows are neatly arranged according to their purpose and size requirements and just as much flexibility for keybindings.
Though nowadays I use Mac OS and it's...fine. What's actually important is how smoothly it lets you switch windows.
I stopped when I switched to a 5K iMac. 5120x2880 is enough for things like side by side browsers and editors, and I use the excellent Rectangle app to easily align them in perfect ½, ⅓, or ¼ width of the screen (I use Firefox’s excellent responsive design mode for exactly matching client devices).
Nice, I like this idea here. Broadly, even though my main is a 27" 4K, I now more or less can't stand using two monitors, except for specific use cases where it "makes sense," e.g. when I teach classes online, and I need "my space" vs "what the students are seeing."
I have to switch from my 43" screen to my 15" laptop when travelling and I always hate it. I find it so much more productive to have everything open at once and not have to tab between windows.
Its funny. I have programmed for a decade and at no point I have ever found that an external monitor was the solution to my problems. My coworkers think I'm crazy, but I do all development on a 15' macbook. My path to efficiency and ergonomic work has always been to become more familiar with the keyboard shortcuts for navigating windows and tabs. Along with Spectacle, Vimium, and tree-style tabs, I have never wanted for a second monitor. Mostly I find it annoying because I forget where I put my applications if I have two monitors.
My overall mantra at work is that I can only do one thing a a time if I want to do it well. I feel in a sense limiting myself to one viewport helps reinforce this behavior.
It's on the macbook flair, which is a foldable cell phone with a keyboard. Developers have learned about the power and low cost for this machine and have started to use it as a laptop.
The multiple folds of the screen and keyboard are what allow the flair's 15 foot footprint to be carried around in a phone's form factor.
I have one of the original 16 core versions of these. Come to find out, Apple has recently released 80 and 128 core versions of the flair, so I may need to upgrade next year for the additional horsepower to run data models.
I use only 50% of my MacBook screen for actually writing code, and in fact I bet I could use less than that. I could SSH from my phone to a dev server and just work off a Bluetooth keyboard and the Terminus app. The advantages of being a powerful vimmer.
Me too, I just use my macbook. I keep 2 buffers side by side in VSCode, and cmd-tab or cmd-` to switch to other apps/windows.
I genuinely suffer from imposter syndrome when I see my colleagues with several huge screens in all sorts of configurations. I guess I'm not a real hacker.
I can only look at one screen at a time anyway, so it's as fast to switch apps than to turn my head to look at a different screen. Plus if I want to move the cursor, I need to switch app anyway (or do a long trip with the mouse and click somewhere for focus which is even worse).
If anything, not spending the time to move your neck but rather manipulate keys to manifest buffers in front of your eyes is the real hallmark of being a hacker.
But only then when moving your eyes is slower than switching between your buffers. Explicitly on Mac, from what most people with just one screen talk there are nice fading-animations that cost at least 500ms.
There's a great MacOS app (AltTab) that replicates Windows' alt+tab window switching. It's fantastic, I highly recommend if you are as a big keyboard window switcher as you sound.
I just found contexts and it's fantastic, it's just like alt tab but also comes with a spotlight esq quick switcher and supports vim jk by default. It's also really useful for switching between desktops by turning "reduce motion" on.
I started using Apptivate a couple of months ago, someone on here recommended it. It makes app switching very pleasingly fast. I use a PC kbd with a mac mini :-) and have F5-F9 assigned to instantly switch to the 5 apps I always have open.
Also, holding down F5-F9 shows those windows as long as they're held down. So now, to take a peek at the bash window I hold down F5 as long as I need to look. Can also type or drag things onto there while holding F5 with the other hand.
You can assign any app to any key or combination of keys. It's free. It can do other stuff too. Very highly recommended.
Also, F1-F3 I have assigned in the system settings to F1=Show desktop, F2=current app windows, F3=show all open windows (mission control). So I very rarely have to use Cmd-Tab any more!
I mostly agree. I enjoy my 40” 4k monitors, but I’ve found that sometimes constraining myself to a laptop display can improve my focus. However, laptop keyboards, even those on macs and thinkpads, are poorly suited for extended use I think. The author is using an external keyboard, and that makes the setup much more usable in my opinion.
But 'ergonomic work' has a lot to do with posture as dictated by screen positioning, not just size. With OP's setup, the 180 degree thinkpad hinge and external keyboard allow him to sit with relatively good form. I used to have a hotdesking setup that similar [0].
How do you do that with a MacBook, where the screen only bends so far? Do you also use an external keyboard?
I've used 13" laptops (MacBook Air, Chromebook) for years. I even use my 11.9" iPad when traveling. I mostly use a terminal app ssh'd to a remote server, screen and vim, and switch to a browser window. I prefer to keep my focus on one task in one full-screen window. I find that works best to keep my attention on one thing. Multiple windows, to say nothing of multiple monitors, just create distractions. For me programming and system admin mostly happen in my head, not in a multitude of windows and panes on the screen.
Back in 2005-2008 I worked at a software company that gave developers two large monitors by default, and some people had three -- a status thing for the more senior people. I noticed many of the second displays had Facebook or Twitter on them all day. I don't use social media. I only used one monitor at that job and when I started freelancing I used a laptop and that's worked fine ever since.
I'm old and have worked with screens and keyboards for 40 years, starting with dumb terminals, and never experienced any posture or RSI problems. I know some people do, and they tell me how unhealthy my setup is (no laptop stand or external keyboard). "Ergonomics" is probably more of a personal thing than a hard science.
No, you're just the equivalent of someone who has smoked a pack a day their entire life but doesn't have cancer insisting that that lung cancer business is overblown and unscientific. Even a high risk isn't a guarantee.
I'm not sure what you refer to. What risk do I face using a laptop?
If you mean my statement about ergonomics, look into it yourself, you will find mostly pseudo-science and unsupported claims, and an industry of experts and products that makes a lot of money. If it works for you, great.
That's so interesting. I'm the opposite, but I've worked with plenty of people who work like you do. Both styles are pretty common.
My overall mantra at work is that I can
only do one thing a a time if I want to do it well
I'm curious. What about tasks that are "one thing" but may involve >1 windows/apps? For example, referring to documentation while looking at code? Or tweaking CSS/markup while observing the resulting changes in the browser? (If you do that sort of work)
Yeah, I've had 3 monitors forever, and for a while I tried 4 [1].
I do webinars where obviously one monitor is displayed. I find it clumsy - switching between the code, the program, log, browser, docs and so on.
In general work I focus on one task, but I find that many programs are involved at one time. Docs on one, code on another, program on a third and so on.
I also have a need for email to be open, along with Skype etc. Those get hidden often though, hence my need for the 4th.
[1] my experiment with 4 failed because the horizontal spread was too far, and it was tiresome to swivel to the 4th.i considered putting the 4th above the 3, but felt that too might be "out of eyeline". So for now I'm maxed on 3.
I don’t mind coding on a 12 or so inch laptop screen. But editing a LaTeX file is kind of a pain, because it is nice to have the code and the document side by side, but half a screen is quite small. I guess people working on websites must have similar issues?
Personally I don't mind seeing only the LaTeX code and looking at the pdf once in a while after compiling. But a second screen to keep open and accessible background papers or notes would be very convenient
I’ve been looking for an eink screen for exactly this kind of thing.
Unfortunately they only seem get be put in expensive tablets, or monitors that sort of want to be a main monitor replacement (expensive).
There’s an eInk panel that seems sort of niche-popular, 7.5 inch with 5s refresh, reasonably priced (used in some waveshare projects) but it seems that you can only get the bare board unfortunately.
For me, it's not so much the screen size as the ergonomics. Haviong the screen at the correct height to enable good posture. Separate mouse an keyboard for comfort.
But you can't type when the laptop is on a laptop stand.
Then you need an external keyboard, mouse and mousepad. At that point you're not far off from just slapping a monitor on the table instead of a laptop stand.
You should look up portable monitors. They are crazy small, cheap and good nowadays.
You can get a 15-16" OLED external display with a battery for around 300 western monetary units. Half that if you stick to IPS panels[0]. You can shove one of those in a backpack easily.
> My path to efficiency and ergonomic work has always been to become more familiar with the keyboard shortcuts for navigating windows and tabs.
> Mostly I find it annoying because I forget where I put my applications if I have two monitors.
Do you think you could have put this effort into coming up with a workflow that took advantage of multiple monitors? I didn't use multiple monitors for years, but eventually I tried it out and now it would be hard for me to go back, so I've always considered it to have a small learning curve to figure out how to "make use" of the extra space properly. I feel like being willing to use more keyboard shortcuts for windows and tabs would be an excellent way to get more efficient use out of extra screen space.
This is a bit of an odd take. Do you think that because you can manage one screen well that you don't need a second screen? Or do you think other people only need a second screen because they can't manage a single one?
More screen real-estate is just that. Effective management of two monitors might be a little extra work but it's worth it.
Don’t you find looking down at a laptop painful after a while? At a desk I’m okay working on a smaller screen but if I don’t have an external monitor I need to raise it on a few books and use a separate keyboard if I’m going to spend 8 hours a day sitting like that.
I would consider it crazy to not have an external monitor. I always use one.
But that's not because I think it's important to have two monitors. I only use the external monitor; the laptop's built-in screen would only see any use while traveling.
I'm pretty sure that those people use professional laptop stands
which elevate the laptop monitor to ergonomic height in conjunction with an external keyboard
I only use one monitor and use virtual desktops and side-to-side windows for context switching. But it's the external monitor if it's available, it is more ergonomic to work on a big screen, at the optimal distance and height from the eyes, and with the neck and spine properly aligned rather than curving down.
Interestingly enough with a Macbook I always only used one external monitor instead of 2 as I am used to. IMO the controls were kinda weird (for me) so it felt less painful just sticking to one.
External monitor does not necessarily mean multi monitor. I have an external monitor that is big, and has good contrast and refresh rate, but I close the laptop's lid.
Multiple monitors are ergonomically worse than multiple virtual workspaces IMHO - if you can set up keyboard shortcuts instead of mouse gestures.
For a while I used a single HD 32inch monitor and loved it. I avoided complex windows all over the place. But could lean back in my chair and see everything from a distance.
I am 100% aboard the single screen, single fullscreen app, almost exclusively keyboard work with lots of x-tabbing.
I really like having a second screen though. I keep my laptop open on the side and use it to display "read only" stuff like a build status, consoles, etc.
A second screen is a nice asset in a work from home with lots of video calls with screen sharing. I like having a screen where I can do things in the background while following what is presented in the call. When I present I like choosing a separate screen where I'll move windows in and out depending on what I want to show. People in my call don't have to see my other windows/notifications/mails/whatever when I switch from one app window to another. And it is way easier to have a dedicated screen than switching (or forgetting to switxh) the shared window.
For screensharing it gives a certain peace of my mind having the call in the peripheral vision. But it's still worse to turn your head than switching workspaces.
I get it that you work on one thing at a time and you use programs with keyboard shortcuts like spectacle and vimium etc. But, still I can't help but wonder how does your IDE look? I am guessing you have a code editor (generally with a left/right/bottom panes with file explorer, repl, terminal, other tools etc), add a browser with a documentation page open and your real estate is too little and involves a lot of switching / scrolling, very easily due to all the keyboard shortcuts but its switching/scrolling none the less. Maybe you detach all these into their own windows and use different workspaces in your tiling manager, but that's again a lot of switching to even use a repl.
I am happy that your setup works for you, but a bigger monitor and/or maybe even one extra monitor will just help reduce a lot of that switching/scrolling.
My IDE has basically just the code editor yes. I don't need the project Explorer. Zero useful information at most times so why open it? It's not often I need to know where something is. I open files by name via shortcut. Yes our naming is that good.
I don't need a browser with documentation open at all times. I only need to look at it IFF I need to look something up and if so I switch to it and it's full screen. Copy what I need. Done. No need to flip my head over to the place on some huge screen where "documentation lives". Also I almost never need docs as I have auto complete in the IDE.
When I debug half the screen has the debugger open but only when I debug.
I also know how to get to the place I need to with shortcuts at all times. When I see people use this weird "show all windows in small at the same times" feature used by people I die a little inside. Of course it's gonna take them ages to then find the right one. I alt/cmd double tab to the right window faster than the animation to show the windows would be done. I know that my documentation is two alt tabs away and with one alt/cmd tab I'm back in my IDE. I know the terminal is one alt/cmd tab away. I don't understand people that use small terminal windows integrated into an IDE. Small and unusable. I have a terminal window alt/cmd tab-able to at all times and I know which tab inside that window is for what kind of work e.g. logs tailed on tab 2. When I have it open I can 100 focus on it. No distractions.
As a human you can only focus your eyes at one single thing at a time.
Whether you have to move your head/eyes or press a key to switch between the documentation and the IDE does not make much difference in term of efficiency.
I actually find it more comfortable, ergonomic and fast to have a single screen and switch the workspace. That also means that my (physical) setup is minimal and easy to manage, and that I do not get unnecessary distractions or things moving (notifications, messages, ads, animations...) in my peripheral vision.
I use shortcuts extensively too. And sometimes work exclusively on my laptop.
That said, it's helpful to be able to use my project while seeing all the logs involved. And that gets extremely claustrophobic on a laptop. Especially if you have an application that is heavy on both the client and server side - chrome, chrome devtools, re-frame-10x sidebar debugger, server side logs/debugger.
It gets even worse when I'm working on one project, which is a client/server game using Unity.
> Mostly I find it annoying because I forget where I put my applications if I have two monitors.
Your applications should always be in the same place. You can still use keyboard shortcuts too.
Beyond that, because when I first got a 30" monitor it was so much real estate and it took so long to move my mouse between windows, I wrote a little program that let me set and restore mouse positions with global hotkeys. It will also bring whichever window is under the mouse position to the front.
So I can see all logs at once as I'm interacting with the project. Including the debugger. Everything always goes in the same spot. And if I want to interact with one of those windows, I can use a hotkey which will instantly set my mouse cursor to a known good position within that window, which enables me to interact with even a GUI in a reproducible fashion rather than having to slow boat my cursor over to it.
> Beyond that, because when I first got a 30" monitor it was so much real estate and it took so long to move my mouse between windows, I wrote a little program that let me set and restore mouse positions with global hotkeys. It will also bring whichever window is under the mouse position to the front.
On Windows, the focus-follows-mouse feature does both these things. Along with raising and focusing whatever you mouseover, it also moves the mouse to any window you alt-tab too. Sadly, it's been tuned weirdly in new versions of windows so it isn't very useful now.
That's cool, I didn't know such a thing existed - when I ran into the problem I was at a loss on what to search for to make the large monitor more usable.
Too bad it's weird now.
I don't use windows anymore, but when I first did this it was for windows, and it was only something like 100 lines of C to accomplish including all the standard windows boilerplate.
how do you deal with 4-up situations - where you need the comp or design doc, the code, the test window, and the debugger / dev tools, all available for you to glance back and forth between?
I'm using 4 monitors, two 33" and two vertical 22".
It has nothing to do with knowing how to do shortcuts, but having to do them at all. There are plenty of instances where you may only need to provide input to one window at a time, but see other things, like documentation, output, logs, or a browser window of the page you are editing. Having multiple monitors allows me to greatly reduce the need to switch between windows to reference something or see results of my inputs.
I personally find that if I'm forced to alt-tab between my IDE and documentation, like when I'm working on a laptop, it's incredibly distracting, breaks my flow, and slows down my work significantly.
Personally, I use a single 38" curved monitor (3480x1600). I have old man eyes but this allows me to have up to 4 vertically split tmux panes with at least 80 cols in each pane for programming in vim. I find multi-monitor very distracting, but I'd never go back to a single 1080p screen at this point.
For a long while I used just the 15"/16" MacBook without any external displays. I find multiple displays to be bad for my concentration or my neck and eyes (too much movement...)
For web development, Chrome's responsive design mode with free viewport scaling is great - like testing a 4K TV display resolution in a half of a browser window. Wish Firefox had a similar scaling mode...
I strongly prefer having only one screen no larger than 19 inches with a pixel density between about 110ppi and 150ppi. Why? Neck and eye strain with all other configurations I've tried. Also small font sizes really shine when the pixels are that large.
The more you have customizable tools, the less is the need for larger or more monitors. I used to feel crippled if I don't have two large monitors, but after starting to use i3 and customizing it to my needs, I'm quiet comfortable with a single external monitor to do most work. It has been a great tool for improving my productivity.
you obviously cannot use a 48 inch 4K monitor. but for me I think that 4K on large display offers so much space and confort. you end up use a smaller monitor to justify using a WM… why not, but dont donwvote me then
In my case, I don't think I could go laptop-screen-exclusive because I've become too accustomed to my monitor being held at exactly the right height and distance from my eyes with a VESA arm. This can be done with laptops too (and in fact, my laptop is on a VESA ARM via adapter itself), but it wouldn't be particularly comfortable to use as a primary monitor at the same distance.
As far as tiling window managers go, I haven't been able to make them work for me on any size of screen. It probably boils down to the sorts of programs one uses in their day to day but I found that the auto-tiling does the wrong thing frustratingly often and enough programs are opted out into floating mode that it makes more sense to stick with a more traditional floating WM with optional tiling.
I do however agree that smaller screens should be a bigger priority, but this is done easily enough without giving up a desktop monitor. Sidecar on an iPad works nicely for this, and there are plenty of portable screens that are just laptop panels in a chassis that you can hook up. There's also no shortage of bare laptop panels on eBay that one can assemble with a driver board and 3D printed case.
> I mostly operate single applications within their own confined tag
For all this talk about getting a realistic user experience, what on earth are tags? I have absolutely no idea what that means in the context of window managers.
It's virtual desktops but with a fancier name, and a minor bonus feature where specific windows can appear on multiple virtual desktops at once.
DWM uses bitmasks to keep track of what window is on what virtual desktop and bitmasks can have multiple bits set, so windows can be on multiple desktops/"tags".
I use virtual desktops. The only missing piece of the puzzle is the missing shortcuts to go directlly to a specific desktop, win + 3 for example. If Windows woild provide that, I coils also buy a bluetooth macro keyboard and use it just for that.
> I [could] also buy a bluetooth macro keyboard and use it just for that.
For two-hands-on-keyboard work, I quite like using 'cv' and 'm,' keys as chords for "desktop left" and "desktop right".
This can be achieved on a keyboard with customisable firmware (like a QMK-powered keyboard), or perhaps through software like kmonad.
Though, yeah, not every desktop environment has "go to desktop X", so I just get used to setting each one up, and 'remembering' how many times to go left/right when switching.
have you tried SylphyHornPlusWin11 [0]? this is a variant of SylphyHorn working on windows11, too. I use it daily, because I was missing exactly this functionality. But it also has other nice shortcuts, too.
The data in this article mentions that the most popular resolutions for desktop were 1920×1080 (9.94%) and 1366×768 (6.22%). The numbers don't really add up. What are the other possible resulutions? I'd presume that these two would the biggest percentage!
I need 3 monitors or I am crippled, and the god awful alt+tab management of MacOS which is imposed on me contributes a lot to this need.
And to be fair, you can tell me anything you want, I will not believe that you are as efficient with a single monitor as with at least 2. I used a single one for 6 months in 2020 and I lost a lot of productivity.
Actually I do not believe it to the point that if I was in a position of power over someone who refuses to use more than one, I would get rid of them.
Sounds like you could benefit from AltTab https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ It's a free, open source alt+tab replacement for macOS. Highly customisable and works well.
I only have 2 currently at my new job, I have all the logs of services in tmux in 6 to 8 splited panels on 1 screen and IDE on 2nd, I feel as if there is one missing were I can have documentation/wikis/slack/jira etc. I think just using your eyes is faster than managing it on 1 screen but that's just how I'm used to it. Sadly most companies who are not solely into software developing have the same IT setup with 1-2 24 inch screens for the entire company. That's why I'm mostly in home office these days with my 4 screen setup.
> Actually I do not believe it to the point that if I was in a position of power over someone who refuses to use more than one, I would get rid of them.
You also need to be considerate of other people’s habits. When you typically think that your way is the ‘right way’ then you’re usually wrong.
I am more efficient with a single monitor, because I use a tiling window manager. All my windows get laid out, there's no dead space for a wallpaper, I dont have to full screen everything and drag stuff around with a mouse, and each workspace functions for me the way each monitor does for you, I can have up to 10. The difference is, where you'd turn your head, I hit a keyboard command super+<number>. You can only look at one monitor at a time, might as well reuse the hardware and save on money and waste.
If you believe it so strongly that nothing can possibly change your mind your believe is irrational, doubly so considering you admit your choice of operating system gimps productivity yet you still choose to use it. If you'd fire someone for using a different workflow than you as a heuristic for their productivity you have no business managing people.
> I am more efficient with a single monitor, because I use a tiling window manager.
I just read a whole article (this one) about a guy that had to switch to a single monitor because switching to a tiling window manager made it hard to live with more than just 1 monitor, so allow me to doubt that your WM is actually increasing your efficiency.
But even without that, no you are no. If you need to switch between virtual desktops to, for example, see the code and see the website renderer by the code, it is an highly inefficient process.
So unless your single monitor happens to be a 44" 5K monitor, I would 100% fire you.
> you admit your choice of operating system gimps productivity yet you still choose to use it
I think the word "imposed" made it pretty clear that I actually do not have the choice.
So you're being forced to use a workflow you don't like that gimps your productivity, and you still would force guys to use workflows they may not like? That's worse than choosing it man.
Switching workspaces is as easy as moving your eyeballs, at least in a tiling wm. It's no different workflow wise, except it costs hundreds of dollars less. You can literally only look at one monitor at a time. Very, very few people actually have a need for more than one. The majority of people using more than one monitor are doing it because it makes them feel like hackerman, because their boss imposes a workflow and environment on them, or because they can't be bothered to try to make their environment more efficient.
Multiple monitors are a force multiplier to Alt+Tab.
Yes, I can compile a formal business document from disparate programs and formats all on one screen and there is a bit of an advantage - mouse movement - but that's trivial compared to spatial awareness. Getting something from Excel into PowerPoint while checking Outlook incoming stuff and shooting the cow patties on Teams is a different modus operandi. That's why I relate what I do to being more like an F1 machine than a long-haul key puncher. When I'm on, I'm burning gas and hauling ass.
When I'm off, I'm decompressing in ways that are not exactly customary.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 269 ms ] thread2 monitors are the way to go for me.
I generally do all my work on one screen and keep email / teams / Spotify on the laptop screen.
But I used to work with another guy. Also ADHD. And he said he absolutely had to restrict himself to smaller, single screens, in order to focus because looking at multiple windows at once was anathema to his ADHD.
Just doubly reinforces how unique brains are. Even with the same diagnosis, different strategies.
It sucks, because it sure looks fun to do some work in a coffee shop or whatever from time to time!
And not wanting to tell you it is wrong if this works great for you, but tbh I wouldn't see the necessity in this setup for multiple monitors, by your first post had assumed a very different kind of work ;)
Now I use a 43" 4k monitor and use most of the middle 2/3rds. I would use an extra wide monitor but they're made excessively wide & short. When playing games I can use 2560x1440 @59 Hz and the monitor knows to do 1:1 pixels so it's only using the centre of the display. I'm not so hardcore I need higher refresh rates--though the buttery smooth scrolling on new Macbooks is nice.
For example, I can display the PDF output of a LaTeX document on one monitor while keeping vim and a PDF of a book I'm reading on the other monitor. If I only had one monitor, my productivity would suffer because I would have to constantly switch between windows.
My favorite so far was stumpwm, which lets you statically split the screen in any way and then have a stack of windows in every segment. Works fine on every display size or number, all windows are neatly arranged according to their purpose and size requirements and just as much flexibility for keybindings.
Though nowadays I use Mac OS and it's...fine. What's actually important is how smoothly it lets you switch windows.
My overall mantra at work is that I can only do one thing a a time if I want to do it well. I feel in a sense limiting myself to one viewport helps reinforce this behavior.
The multiple folds of the screen and keyboard are what allow the flair's 15 foot footprint to be carried around in a phone's form factor.
I have one of the original 16 core versions of these. Come to find out, Apple has recently released 80 and 128 core versions of the flair, so I may need to upgrade next year for the additional horsepower to run data models.
I genuinely suffer from imposter syndrome when I see my colleagues with several huge screens in all sorts of configurations. I guess I'm not a real hacker.
I can only look at one screen at a time anyway, so it's as fast to switch apps than to turn my head to look at a different screen. Plus if I want to move the cursor, I need to switch app anyway (or do a long trip with the mouse and click somewhere for focus which is even worse).
https://contexts.co/
Also, holding down F5-F9 shows those windows as long as they're held down. So now, to take a peek at the bash window I hold down F5 as long as I need to look. Can also type or drag things onto there while holding F5 with the other hand.
You can assign any app to any key or combination of keys. It's free. It can do other stuff too. Very highly recommended.
Also, F1-F3 I have assigned in the system settings to F1=Show desktop, F2=current app windows, F3=show all open windows (mission control). So I very rarely have to use Cmd-Tab any more!
http://www.apptivateapp.com/
How do you do that with a MacBook, where the screen only bends so far? Do you also use an external keyboard?
[0]: http://i.imgur.com/3R51QXE.jpg
Back in 2005-2008 I worked at a software company that gave developers two large monitors by default, and some people had three -- a status thing for the more senior people. I noticed many of the second displays had Facebook or Twitter on them all day. I don't use social media. I only used one monitor at that job and when I started freelancing I used a laptop and that's worked fine ever since.
I'm old and have worked with screens and keyboards for 40 years, starting with dumb terminals, and never experienced any posture or RSI problems. I know some people do, and they tell me how unhealthy my setup is (no laptop stand or external keyboard). "Ergonomics" is probably more of a personal thing than a hard science.
If you mean my statement about ergonomics, look into it yourself, you will find mostly pseudo-science and unsupported claims, and an industry of experts and products that makes a lot of money. If it works for you, great.
If your plan cannot be executed by Grug's 120-character-wide text editor, it is too complex and should be broken into smaller steps.
I do webinars where obviously one monitor is displayed. I find it clumsy - switching between the code, the program, log, browser, docs and so on.
In general work I focus on one task, but I find that many programs are involved at one time. Docs on one, code on another, program on a third and so on.
I also have a need for email to be open, along with Skype etc. Those get hidden often though, hence my need for the 4th.
[1] my experiment with 4 failed because the horizontal spread was too far, and it was tiresome to swivel to the 4th.i considered putting the 4th above the 3, but felt that too might be "out of eyeline". So for now I'm maxed on 3.
Unfortunately they only seem get be put in expensive tablets, or monitors that sort of want to be a main monitor replacement (expensive).
There’s an eInk panel that seems sort of niche-popular, 7.5 inch with 5s refresh, reasonably priced (used in some waveshare projects) but it seems that you can only get the bare board unfortunately.
Then you need an external keyboard, mouse and mousepad. At that point you're not far off from just slapping a monitor on the table instead of a laptop stand.
You can get a 15-16" OLED external display with a battery for around 300 western monetary units. Half that if you stick to IPS panels[0]. You can shove one of those in a backpack easily.
[0] https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Portable-Monitor-Connection-Raspb...
> Mostly I find it annoying because I forget where I put my applications if I have two monitors.
Do you think you could have put this effort into coming up with a workflow that took advantage of multiple monitors? I didn't use multiple monitors for years, but eventually I tried it out and now it would be hard for me to go back, so I've always considered it to have a small learning curve to figure out how to "make use" of the extra space properly. I feel like being willing to use more keyboard shortcuts for windows and tabs would be an excellent way to get more efficient use out of extra screen space.
More screen real-estate is just that. Effective management of two monitors might be a little extra work but it's worth it.
But that's not because I think it's important to have two monitors. I only use the external monitor; the laptop's built-in screen would only see any use while traveling.
Multiple monitors are ergonomically worse than multiple virtual workspaces IMHO - if you can set up keyboard shortcuts instead of mouse gestures.
I really like having a second screen though. I keep my laptop open on the side and use it to display "read only" stuff like a build status, consoles, etc.
I am happy that your setup works for you, but a bigger monitor and/or maybe even one extra monitor will just help reduce a lot of that switching/scrolling.
My IDE has basically just the code editor yes. I don't need the project Explorer. Zero useful information at most times so why open it? It's not often I need to know where something is. I open files by name via shortcut. Yes our naming is that good.
I don't need a browser with documentation open at all times. I only need to look at it IFF I need to look something up and if so I switch to it and it's full screen. Copy what I need. Done. No need to flip my head over to the place on some huge screen where "documentation lives". Also I almost never need docs as I have auto complete in the IDE.
When I debug half the screen has the debugger open but only when I debug.
I also know how to get to the place I need to with shortcuts at all times. When I see people use this weird "show all windows in small at the same times" feature used by people I die a little inside. Of course it's gonna take them ages to then find the right one. I alt/cmd double tab to the right window faster than the animation to show the windows would be done. I know that my documentation is two alt tabs away and with one alt/cmd tab I'm back in my IDE. I know the terminal is one alt/cmd tab away. I don't understand people that use small terminal windows integrated into an IDE. Small and unusable. I have a terminal window alt/cmd tab-able to at all times and I know which tab inside that window is for what kind of work e.g. logs tailed on tab 2. When I have it open I can 100 focus on it. No distractions.
Whether you have to move your head/eyes or press a key to switch between the documentation and the IDE does not make much difference in term of efficiency.
I actually find it more comfortable, ergonomic and fast to have a single screen and switch the workspace. That also means that my (physical) setup is minimal and easy to manage, and that I do not get unnecessary distractions or things moving (notifications, messages, ads, animations...) in my peripheral vision.
That said, it's helpful to be able to use my project while seeing all the logs involved. And that gets extremely claustrophobic on a laptop. Especially if you have an application that is heavy on both the client and server side - chrome, chrome devtools, re-frame-10x sidebar debugger, server side logs/debugger.
It gets even worse when I'm working on one project, which is a client/server game using Unity.
> Mostly I find it annoying because I forget where I put my applications if I have two monitors.
Your applications should always be in the same place. You can still use keyboard shortcuts too.
Beyond that, because when I first got a 30" monitor it was so much real estate and it took so long to move my mouse between windows, I wrote a little program that let me set and restore mouse positions with global hotkeys. It will also bring whichever window is under the mouse position to the front.
So I can see all logs at once as I'm interacting with the project. Including the debugger. Everything always goes in the same spot. And if I want to interact with one of those windows, I can use a hotkey which will instantly set my mouse cursor to a known good position within that window, which enables me to interact with even a GUI in a reproducible fashion rather than having to slow boat my cursor over to it.
On Windows, the focus-follows-mouse feature does both these things. Along with raising and focusing whatever you mouseover, it also moves the mouse to any window you alt-tab too. Sadly, it's been tuned weirdly in new versions of windows so it isn't very useful now.
Too bad it's weird now.
I don't use windows anymore, but when I first did this it was for windows, and it was only something like 100 lines of C to accomplish including all the standard windows boilerplate.
It has nothing to do with knowing how to do shortcuts, but having to do them at all. There are plenty of instances where you may only need to provide input to one window at a time, but see other things, like documentation, output, logs, or a browser window of the page you are editing. Having multiple monitors allows me to greatly reduce the need to switch between windows to reference something or see results of my inputs.
I personally find that if I'm forced to alt-tab between my IDE and documentation, like when I'm working on a laptop, it's incredibly distracting, breaks my flow, and slows down my work significantly.
I use keyboard maestro, several hotkeyed window layouts
For web development, Chrome's responsive design mode with free viewport scaling is great - like testing a 4K TV display resolution in a half of a browser window. Wish Firefox had a similar scaling mode...
In my case, I don't think I could go laptop-screen-exclusive because I've become too accustomed to my monitor being held at exactly the right height and distance from my eyes with a VESA arm. This can be done with laptops too (and in fact, my laptop is on a VESA ARM via adapter itself), but it wouldn't be particularly comfortable to use as a primary monitor at the same distance.
As far as tiling window managers go, I haven't been able to make them work for me on any size of screen. It probably boils down to the sorts of programs one uses in their day to day but I found that the auto-tiling does the wrong thing frustratingly often and enough programs are opted out into floating mode that it makes more sense to stick with a more traditional floating WM with optional tiling.
I do however agree that smaller screens should be a bigger priority, but this is done easily enough without giving up a desktop monitor. Sidecar on an iPad works nicely for this, and there are plenty of portable screens that are just laptop panels in a chassis that you can hook up. There's also no shortage of bare laptop panels on eBay that one can assemble with a driver board and 3D printed case.
For all this talk about getting a realistic user experience, what on earth are tags? I have absolutely no idea what that means in the context of window managers.
DWM uses bitmasks to keep track of what window is on what virtual desktop and bitmasks can have multiple bits set, so windows can be on multiple desktops/"tags".
For two-hands-on-keyboard work, I quite like using 'cv' and 'm,' keys as chords for "desktop left" and "desktop right".
This can be achieved on a keyboard with customisable firmware (like a QMK-powered keyboard), or perhaps through software like kmonad.
Though, yeah, not every desktop environment has "go to desktop X", so I just get used to setting each one up, and 'remembering' how many times to go left/right when switching.
[0]: https://github.com/hwtnb/SylphyHornPlusWin11
I don't believe Gnome provides this option.
And to be fair, you can tell me anything you want, I will not believe that you are as efficient with a single monitor as with at least 2. I used a single one for 6 months in 2020 and I lost a lot of productivity.
Actually I do not believe it to the point that if I was in a position of power over someone who refuses to use more than one, I would get rid of them.
You also need to be considerate of other people’s habits. When you typically think that your way is the ‘right way’ then you’re usually wrong.
If you believe it so strongly that nothing can possibly change your mind your believe is irrational, doubly so considering you admit your choice of operating system gimps productivity yet you still choose to use it. If you'd fire someone for using a different workflow than you as a heuristic for their productivity you have no business managing people.
I just read a whole article (this one) about a guy that had to switch to a single monitor because switching to a tiling window manager made it hard to live with more than just 1 monitor, so allow me to doubt that your WM is actually increasing your efficiency.
But even without that, no you are no. If you need to switch between virtual desktops to, for example, see the code and see the website renderer by the code, it is an highly inefficient process.
So unless your single monitor happens to be a 44" 5K monitor, I would 100% fire you.
> you admit your choice of operating system gimps productivity yet you still choose to use it
I think the word "imposed" made it pretty clear that I actually do not have the choice.
Switching workspaces is as easy as moving your eyeballs, at least in a tiling wm. It's no different workflow wise, except it costs hundreds of dollars less. You can literally only look at one monitor at a time. Very, very few people actually have a need for more than one. The majority of people using more than one monitor are doing it because it makes them feel like hackerman, because their boss imposes a workflow and environment on them, or because they can't be bothered to try to make their environment more efficient.
Yes, I can compile a formal business document from disparate programs and formats all on one screen and there is a bit of an advantage - mouse movement - but that's trivial compared to spatial awareness. Getting something from Excel into PowerPoint while checking Outlook incoming stuff and shooting the cow patties on Teams is a different modus operandi. That's why I relate what I do to being more like an F1 machine than a long-haul key puncher. When I'm on, I'm burning gas and hauling ass.
When I'm off, I'm decompressing in ways that are not exactly customary.