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Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by leugim on Sunday August 09, 2020 @09:19AM (#24099435)
"Most workflows can benefit from multiple monitors. it's a silly thing to be bottlenecked by screen area on a fancy computer when used 1080p monitors are nearly free in 2020."

No. My productivity is much better with just one monitor.

Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by asutekku on Sunday August 09, 2020 @09:28AM (#24099499)
Then you’re not in the “most”. GP did not say “All workflows”
Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by davidwparker on Sunday August 09, 2020 @09:45AM (#24099602)
GP probably shouldn't have included it. It's hard to argue that even "most" do. Maybe "some" workflows.
Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by dominotw on Sunday August 09, 2020 @10:18AM (#24099794)
same and how can so many people not be in "most"
Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by stjohnswarts on Sunday August 09, 2020 @01:12PM (#24101058)
-Most- implies for some people it won't be so. I don't think he meant it was true for everyone. Most of the engineers I know personally, and that's a lot, prefer two or more screens to work on.
Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by zimpenfish on Sunday August 09, 2020 @09:25AM (#24099478)
Same, at least thus far. It always ends with annoyance caused by fighting over window management and task switching which hampers productivity.
Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by dkersten on Sunday August 09, 2020 @09:36AM (#24099550)
I never understood why people struggle with window management, but then again, my primary setup is to use a tiling window manager where I either keep a single full screen window in a workspace or a very simple side by side split, or 1x2 split or 2x2 split as appropriate. Possibly one hovering window that I call up/hide on demand. And then I just keyboard shortcut between workspaces. For multi monitor, I dedicate some workspaces to each monitor (and occasionally move windows between then if needed, but it’s not so often). It’s easy to switch between workspaces because I dedicate them to specific tasks, eg 0 is messaging applications, 6 is my IDE, 7 is browser I use for development (dev tools open tiled beside the browser), 8 is terminals etc

More monitors just mean some workspaces are switched between by moving my head instead of switching what’s on screen. For some tasks it’s easier for others it’s not.

I do find a larger higher resolution monitor more useful than having two or three small ones, especially for my IDE where I have splits and such. I use a 34” 1440p currently but would love to go larger/higher resolution (but 4K at those sizes is out of my budget right now)

Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by zimpenfish on Sunday August 09, 2020 @12:01PM (#24100476)
> I either keep a single full screen window

Pretty much what I do with my single screen. Probably down to being a contractor for a long time and never knowing from one day to the next if I even had a desk to sit at, never mind a monitor or two.

Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by jon-wood on Sunday August 09, 2020 @09:51AM (#24099640)
Since moving to Mac OS because of work I desperately miss XMonad, where workspaces and screens are separate concepts, and you can ask any screen to show any workspace and it’ll just resize appropriately.
Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by stjohnswarts on Sunday August 09, 2020 @01:15PM (#24101082)
There are tiling managers for OSX. None of them work as well as the ones for Linux but they're better than fumbling with a bunch of mousing around. Maybe try Divvy or Tiles.
Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by wogong on Sunday August 09, 2020 @10:03AM (#24099699)
Tiling window manager like i3 in multiple monitors environment is not that convenient as I thought. Most of the time I just use one monitor. Switching workspace between multiple monitors confuses me.
Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by dkersten on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @11:15AM (#24121169)
I still like having multiple monitors even with i3, but a single large monitor is definitely more useful to me than multiple small ones, so given the choice I would choose a larger primary monitor before choosing a second or third monitor.
Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by MaulingMonkey on Sunday August 09, 2020 @09:56AM (#24099661)
That's exactly the problem I solve with multiple monitors.

I'd rather flick my eyes over to the browser window documenting function signatures, error cases, etc. than alt+tab through potentially several windows to find said docs window, then alt+tab ing back to my coding window to use said information.

But apparently some people prefer to do that, than to spam a few win+arrow key combinations, to spread their windows out for initial setup.

Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by alluro2 on Sunday August 09, 2020 @12:04PM (#24100507)
I suspect it has to do with number of windows required for your work. If it's a couple, I guess switching desktops/screens/windows via shortcut is equally or more efficient than separate screens.

However, if I have ~10-12 windows I regularly need to switch between (2-3 related projects in the code editor, 2 browser windows - 1 browsing/docs, 1 the actual app I'm working on, terminal, db mgmt tool, Figma, Slack, email, Calc for some of the data, file manager), a tiling manager or multiple desktop on just one physical screen make things significantly harder for me...I might be missing something obvious in how it's supposed to be used.

Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by natn on Sunday August 09, 2020 @09:59AM (#24099675)
Sort of agree, though I'd say more important the number of monitors is resolution. I find anything less 2560x1440 results in increased cognitive load for window management.
Re:Ask HN: What are some available force multipliers that mo... by nickthemagicman on Sunday August 09, 2020 @09:28AM (#24099496)
I use workspaces with one monitor. It's sort of best of both worlds.