Re:Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One (2014)
by fallat on Saturday June 13, 2015 @05:02AM
(#9710399)
I'm with your here. The whole purpose of virtual desktops is to have more...desktops. No need to turn your head...just a flick of the fingers.
Re:Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One (2014)
by ddingus on Saturday June 13, 2015 @12:49PM
(#9711592)
Yep. They are great. Some of the better ones allow for moving a window to another desktop easily too. Perfect for that, "but I need this for a minute" type use cases.
There is a trend toward minimalism going on. I'm not sure it's to our benefit.
Some tasks benefit from multiple displays. High end CAD / CAM / CAE very clearly do, as one example. Graphics, video production, simulation, visualization, are all potentials for similar reasons.
One thing I find extremely annoying in the Windows window manager is this idea of click to focus to top in order to do just about anything. On IRIX, the 4DWM window manager allowed a quick highlight, cut, paste, copy operation without actually bringing the window forward. The same is true for text input. Options like this are available in many *nix + X Window system window managers. They rock hard.
Couple that with virtual desktops, and it was entirely possible to have a ton of things going on, have them well organized, task switch with relative ease and manipulate and move information in various ways, often across applications, with a minimum of focus and context changes. There are times when I would leave the IRIX box logged in for weeks at a time as several complex tasks got worked through. Just pile 'em on virtual desktops and switch as makes sense.
Windows 8 moved away from this and toward very rigid window management schemes, and it's a significant loss when operated as intended. One can still get to the desktop and carefully avoid the massive context changes associated with metro and do OK.
But I have to ask, "why?"
I get it on tablets and phones. However, my Samsung Note 4 actually does a window / icon display and I've often used it to have several things displayed at once with the intent of using information from several different things at once to get a task done not unlike how I would have done it on 4DWM. Spiffy, if you ask me!
Doing this on an Android that really doesn't have any window capability is crazy! Lots of context switches, and lots of interactions needed for tasks that might otherwise just be a few. I find that aspect of Android and the Metro UX paradigm crippling.
Where these ugly things are in play, using more than one display is basically buying a window and all that goes with having multiple windows. Doesn't have to go that way, and I would argue, shouldn't as a default for computing.