Why use more than 1 monitor when workspaces exist?
Some things I can think of:
- passively consuming media video while playing video games
- multi-monitor setup reduces the number of workspaces needed on tiling WM if lots of programs are opened
Anything else?
Video editing
Doing multiple shit at once without annoyance of switching the workspaces
Novelty little thingy that keeps you in track with all things with a simple glance across the screens
I maintain some sites for m8s and full screen browser + inspect element, editor & terminal is something that I need, which don't fit on 1 full hd monitor. Other than that, a DE is fucking useless unless you're gayming or you = not paying attention to you're favorite super hero series while scrolling 9fag, reading what everyone is "sharing" on cuckbook and checking out your most legit state propaganda on its web2.0 app
I like to have one monitor dedicated to my work at hand, one monitor as ancillary to supplant the work I'm doing at hand, and a third monitor for other things. Gnome's infinite workspace feature is a very substitute for not having enough monitors.
That makes sense, I had similar experience. But wouldn't be 2560x1440 resolution good enough for that? Just guessing.
Surely, you can see the advantage of having more than one monitor.
If you want to copy selected code from a website and write it into a text editor, it is much better to be able to look at the code on one side and write it in the other side. A frail example but the clicking again and again is cumbersome.
So I guess the key word is ease.
I am a floating WM pleb. My most complex setup (application split) is four quarters (25%) per workspace and most common is two halves (50%).
Here is my workflow:
>3rd workspace: all applications that I don't need for work, but don't want to close (irc, email client, discord)
Don't need more than one monitor.
Monitoring stuff.
When I worked in process control, having six monitors that I could scan my eyes across to check different things definitely made me more effective.
Why many monitors when you can have a single gigantic one?
I keep a web browser open on my left browser which allows me to look things up in the middle of working on other things (this includes keeping the documentation for something up).
On my right monitor I always have irc up in case someone sends me a message. As I work from home and communicate with my employer through irc, it is a must.
On my primary monitor I have several workspaces for whatever I'm working on.
PCs can't have workspaces at different resolutions, refresh rates or colorspaces
Size matters
...
keeping reading material/references open at all times on a second monitor.
temperature/system monitoring
game + chat program.
I rarely use my extra monitors anymore, mainly because I'm an autist and can't stand the difference in colors from my primary.
NASA roleplaying
What are contrast and color settings on the screens themselves?
You aren't autist just lazy pompous douche who thinks he is smart
even after calibration it doesn't fix panel differences, viewing angle, backlight color temperature, and changes due to CCFL wear.
So far I found 4:3 plus 16:9 quite comfortable, while two 16:9 stay no matter what horrendously placed.
I never understood idiots that have two wide screen monitors side by side, it's so uneconomic. You literally have to move your head around so much you get whiplash.
The only acceptable scenario for a second monitor is a single vertical next to your main for programming and referencing reasons.
*ergonomic
There's nothing wrong with that.
I have two widescreen monitors side by side and the only thing I need to move to look at the other one is my eyes.
Your monitors are just too close to your face.
3 monitors minimum for most productive tasks at top efficiency: #1 for the work itself, #2 for reference material, #3 for tools and palettes.
Cheaper, mostly. I admit a really big curved ultrawide might be able to substitute some day.
This. Keeping a CRT hooked up for vidya, TV, & photo editing is necessary until somebody finally makes a proper OLED PC monitor.
Highly recommended for writing, shitposting, and manga.
You're in denial, this is the true kino.
What's that ugly piece of piss under your keyboard?
it's the bubble-bag that came as padding for the graphics card, it helps with keyboard's vibration
Your mouse looks like it has tumors.
that's because it's a RAT 7, meant for cancerous gaymer skids... but at least it's sturdy
Looks pretty nice. I see you have spare change on desk. I store mine in bubble gum container.
so you can fap while programming
Consumerism. The eyes can only see a very small area sharply. Multitasking is at best sequential, if it works at all, for which virtual displays are actually superior since you do not need to move your head.
So many words on a wrong answer.
not an argument???
sage negated btw
Comfy
It's true you can only see a small area, but your eye sockets are actually the fastest muscle in your body, both in terms of speed and latency. So even ignoring status indicators perceptible at peripheral acuity, multiple/bigger monitors are faster.
How is looking around faster than clicking Alt+1, Alt+2, Alt+3 etc without any animations looking at the same monitor? It is more natural, I give you that, no mental complexity because it is passive. But still feels a waste of money and every normalfag shills for 2 monitors while they are oblivious to workspaces.
Speed and latency. Your eye moves across the visual field of a multi-monitor rig faster than your finger can press a button (let alone move your finger to a different key, or hand to a different part of the keyboard), and the eye begins moving faster than your finger can receive a nerve impulse from the brain:
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
frontiersin.org
Very simply, my eyes move faster than my hands do. It's much easier to glance over quickly when referencing something in a different window rather than switching workspaces or minimizing and maximizing windows. I use 3 monitors on my desk because it's super easy to have documentation on one display, my text editor on another, and a media player in another for music and podcasts while I work. When I want to change/control any of these programs in each display, I just mouse over to it, rather than doing the added steps of clicking on the taskbar or switching workspaces.
The exception to this is my laptop, where I just tile the windows and use workspaces. It's still pretty efficient with one display when I need something portable. I could live with one display, but I have the money, so I might as well spend it on something I'll enjoy using. It's not like I can take my shekels with me when I'm dead, so I'm not going to be stingy jew and compromise on my monitor setup.
they call non-apple fags poor, they should call you poor.
Is your PC just a bunch of parts lying around off to the right of your monitors?
You've a shit mouse.
You just have more real estate, what a dumb fucking question. That's like asking why people use screens with a higher resolution than 1280x720. I imagine you're the kind of faggot who thinks SSDs are a meme.
get a load of this poorfag without a vibration-damping wooden keyboard
>2 VGA and 2 AC wires are fucking on the HDD
Although that setup looked great, wtf don't do that. Seriously hope you're not done with that.
shigg
Did you even read this thread? You don't have more screen estate because you can't simultaneously look at both monitors. That's why you use workspaces instead.
I imagine you're the kind of faggot who uses Windows and can't into workspaces.
Cool productive quad-monitor setup
Nah, it just was a temporary situation.
In muh_basement things were properly placed.
You don't do this for a living do ya?
I use a 50 inch 4k TV with ~20ms input lag as my main monitor and still use a secondary monitor for various things. If you do IT stuff for a living every little improvement to your productivity results in more money (unless you handle yourself like a moron). The advantages are obvious. I even spent a ton of money on a good mech keyboard and even if it doesn't make me type faster (it does) the added comfort boost my productivity. I think you get the point.
buy halfway decent monitors. even those asus pro art pieces of shit have calibrated color reproduction and intensity/contrast from the factory.
Confirmed tryhard. Probably doesn't actually write any code apart from i3/dwm configs
But how is this an argument against workspaces? You can't look at two monitors at the same time. It is not in your FOV. Are you a Winbaby who manually clicks windows in the taskbar and needs more monitors to have more programs open at the same time? I have a single monitor and I can use up to 5 workspaces, which are very organized and I do this with very little mental effort because of habit.
Essentially what you are arguing for is:
Well, to summarize everything up to now:
>851907, )
- watch video while playing a game (>>851902)
>851907, , )
- video editing (>>851903)
- need fewer workspaces (>>851902)
- instant messaging (>>851944, )
- inspect element in browser (>>851914)
- look up references (>>851931, , , )
- different resolutions, refresh rates, colorspaces (>>851977)
- vertical monitor for reading tall texts (>>852274)
And FWIW, I disagree with the argument that workspaces are the same as multiple monitors. Firstly you can have one horizontal one vertical monitor, that's already something workspaces can't do. But also rotating your eye is often much faster than pressing Alt+1. Also peripheral vision gives the eye an additional cue to make finding the correct object on the other monitor faster, but with workspaces that "prefetch" doesn't happen.
Nice summary, thanks.
True, but personally I don't find 16:9 vertical monitors good at all. They are always too high or too low. When I had 1 vertical monitor (for web browsing or documentation) I used two narrow terminals as margins (one at top and one at bottom) in my tiling WM. 100% height was too much. My FOV is horizontal, but still would like more vertical space than 16:9 offers (1080).
I would argue that while it is faster it also only has minimal productivity gain if you build habit with workspaces. If you don't mind spending additional $250+.
Very good point. Haven't thought about it this way.
Personally I don't like having multiple monitors. I know I will sound like contrarian special snowflake, but I also don't like mechanic keyboards, gaming mice, audiophile headphones. I have fallen for all those memes and I regret purchasing it. Waste of money in my eyes. But I still use all of those things because I paid for it. They are in a way better, but it is so negligible it makes me mad I squandered my hard earned money on shiny things because some random internet stranger said this is how things should be. In general I think that we as humans, massively over-engineer most of our things, instead of keeping things simple and cheap, but still reliable and long lasting (repairability). Sorry for offtopic rant. Had to let it out.
I got a 17" CRT dirt cheap, it's cool to put Photoshop's palettes there and leave the main screen entirely to whatever pic I'm working on.
Multi monitor is a 2005-ish era meme these days. Just get a cheap 42" 4K from some chink country
No problem. I was actually gonna list a bunch of things of my own, but realized that they were all already mentioned.
Well, 16:9 is a shit aspect ratio anyways. The only reason it exists, from what I can tell, is muh movees. I miss 4:3 and basically anything else. Vertical 16:9 (or I suppose 9:16) is too narrow for modern GUIs, the toolbars take up too much horizontal space. Horizontal is too short for working on documents. It's a really bad ratio basically.
But still, looking at something like PDFs with "whole page" zoom on most monitors will produce a document that is too small. On a vertical monitor you can see about 1.3 pages at a readable size. To me that's a huge help. Wish they made monitors with saner aspect ratios but until then, at least being able to have one rotated is helpful.
I'll concede this point. I haven't really seen evidence that it's "more productive". However it feels more comfy and less stressful, so in terms of subjective feeling I like it. And the subjective good feeling may in turn improve productivity. But mostly it's just more pleasant.
I bought both my monitors for $120 actually, years ago.
Eh, it's everybody has their own preference. A lot of people do like it, but I wouldn't badger you about it if you've tried and didn't like it.
I'm on the fence about this. They sound kinda nice, but the enthusiasts always seem to overhype them.
Sometimes decent quality mice will all be gaming mice, but usually most gaming mice suck yeah, like "gaming" anything.
Lel
I hear ya. Actually I got into multiscreen when I had to work from my laptop and only had access to a TV. I figured the TV has slightly more pixels so I'll use that to spare my eyes, but then realized how much nicer it is to actually have two screens.
Multi monitor setups are nice for programming and looking at references without having to switch to a different workspace.
For most purposes their not necessary, and it's probably a better idea to spend the money on one good monitor instead of two crappy ones.
While you can't simultaneously look at two screens at once, you also can't simulatenously look at two areas that are bigger than about 400x400 pixels at normal DPI and viewing distance. So whats the reason for having screens bigger than that? Just scroll around the screen retard! Just switch workspaces!
Fucking troglodyte, it's obviously much more comfortable to do the fastest, simplest action the human body is capable of, twitching the muscles inside of your eye, to look at something on a different screen, instead of having to input a command to switch the workspace.
You could even keep typing while reading something on the other screen, or watching a video on it. Not to mention games and other shit that can't rapidly be switched around.
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