Dual screen "experience" with one 24" screen - software?
Discussion
Afternoon all. We recently went from 2 x battered old bleeding 19" VGA monitors to 1 x 24" HDMI 1080p screens. While it makes the desk neater and its great for youtube, its not quite as productive as before for the occasional time I do require dual displays.
I know there's stacks of tools/apps out there that can split the screen but wondering if anyone has an particular recommendations?
Looking for is mainly some customisation, ie 40% to "screen 1" for Word, 60% for "screen 2" for Chrome. When you drag/move a window into either of the "virtual screens" and hit maximise, it maximises to that portion of the screen, currently feels a bit of a pain clicking and dragging everything out manually. Being able to activate and deactivate the feature would be good also, as its only when doing research i'll need the functionality of "dual displays".
Thanks for looking.
I know there's stacks of tools/apps out there that can split the screen but wondering if anyone has an particular recommendations?
Looking for is mainly some customisation, ie 40% to "screen 1" for Word, 60% for "screen 2" for Chrome. When you drag/move a window into either of the "virtual screens" and hit maximise, it maximises to that portion of the screen, currently feels a bit of a pain clicking and dragging everything out manually. Being able to activate and deactivate the feature would be good also, as its only when doing research i'll need the functionality of "dual displays".
Thanks for looking.
In Windows, FanzyZones (part of Microsoft's PowerToys) allows you define all sorts of window layouts and, while I don't think there's an option to control what the Maximise button does, if you shift-drag windows around they snap to the zones that you have defined. There are also keyboard shortcuts to do this.
If dual displays help your work, then I would just get another monitor.
I used to do some CAD and simulation work, two monitors is just so much easier.
Maybe the second one could be fairly small? Or if you have one or both on multi-arm bracket mounts, you can get one out of the way when not needed.
At one point I had one landscape and one portrait, which worked well for my tasks.
I used to do some CAD and simulation work, two monitors is just so much easier.
Maybe the second one could be fairly small? Or if you have one or both on multi-arm bracket mounts, you can get one out of the way when not needed.
At one point I had one landscape and one portrait, which worked well for my tasks.
@thinkofaname - FancyZones is quite neat, good customisation but doesn't allow maximising windows to the new space. I downloaded a trial of "Virtual Display Manager v3" from a 3rd party vendor and while it does have the maximise window function, it doesn't have much customisation. Display is either 50/50 or 25/75. Plus its 30 quid a licence - about the 3rd of the cost of a decent monitor.
@Mr Pointy and @OutInTheShed - Think a second screen is what is needed. Laptop packed in (motherboard) so launched the lot as they were 10+ years old (laptop, dock and monitors) as got some barely used Dell kit from a relative from the covid work from home days. Thought 1 near new £250 monitor would be better than 2 x 19" square monitors from about 2009 but was totally wrong on that one. "Digital dualing" would probably be ok if it was just for booking a holiday or buying a car and wanting to do some comparisons, but doing work or uni stuff on it, from my half hour test, happy to report it doesn't work.
I'll keep my eyes out for a second monitor. Quite like the sound/look of flipping the monitor sideways as it'll only be used for reading research papers online and should keep the footprint on the desk down.
Thanks for your inputs.
@Mr Pointy and @OutInTheShed - Think a second screen is what is needed. Laptop packed in (motherboard) so launched the lot as they were 10+ years old (laptop, dock and monitors) as got some barely used Dell kit from a relative from the covid work from home days. Thought 1 near new £250 monitor would be better than 2 x 19" square monitors from about 2009 but was totally wrong on that one. "Digital dualing" would probably be ok if it was just for booking a holiday or buying a car and wanting to do some comparisons, but doing work or uni stuff on it, from my half hour test, happy to report it doesn't work.
I'll keep my eyes out for a second monitor. Quite like the sound/look of flipping the monitor sideways as it'll only be used for reading research papers online and should keep the footprint on the desk down.
Thanks for your inputs.
The other thing to consider is Virtual Desktops; if you have two documents you want to have easy access to, put them on different Desktops and Windows+Ctrl+ Left or Right lets you scroll the desktops, so it'll scroll your documents. It's designed for multiple monitors with different Projects or whatever on each Desktop, but it works really well for scrolling through apps too.
The built-in Windows 11 setup is pretty good, it's better if you learn the keyboard shortcuts though. If you snap to the W11 zones then the zones are resizeable and that resizes all the apps on screen. It remembers your groups too.
Not sure what Fancy Zones adds on top of that, what's missing from Windows is the ability to maximise from a zone to fullscreen and then to minimize back to the zone, does it add that or is it more like a permanent split in the display?
The built-in Windows 11 setup is pretty good, it's better if you learn the keyboard shortcuts though. If you snap to the W11 zones then the zones are resizeable and that resizes all the apps on screen. It remembers your groups too.
Not sure what Fancy Zones adds on top of that, what's missing from Windows is the ability to maximise from a zone to fullscreen and then to minimize back to the zone, does it add that or is it more like a permanent split in the display?
2nd monitor is definitely the way forwards. Don’t know how much you can see with a split 1080p monitor anyway, there wont be enough pixels to display two lots of info side by side, at least not properly.
If you get a 2nd monitor, make 1 the main screen, straight ahead and put the 2nd one angled to your dominant side. So if you are right handed, on the right side of the central screen. Worst thing you can do ergonomically is, sit between them, and look at a join where your head naturally rests.
If you get a 2nd monitor, make 1 the main screen, straight ahead and put the 2nd one angled to your dominant side. So if you are right handed, on the right side of the central screen. Worst thing you can do ergonomically is, sit between them, and look at a join where your head naturally rests.
Edited by wyson on Friday 9th February 16:54
wyson said:
2nd monitor is definitely the way forwards. Don’t know how much you can see with a split 1080p monitor anyway, there wont be enough pixels to display two lots of info side by side, at least not properly.
If you get a 2nd monitor, make 1 the main screen, straight ahead and put the 2nd one angled to your dominant side. So if you are right handed, on the right side of the central screen. Worst thing you can do ergonomically is, sit between them, and look at a join where your head naturally rests.
In my office we all have laptops (14 or 15”) andIf you get a 2nd monitor, make 1 the main screen, straight ahead and put the 2nd one angled to your dominant side. So if you are right handed, on the right side of the central screen. Worst thing you can do ergonomically is, sit between them, and look at a join where your head naturally rests.
Edited by wyson on Friday 9th February 16:54
2 x 24” monitors. I have mine as you describe above, with the laptop on the left.
It blows my mind how many of the other guys have the laptop in front of them, and a monitor angled in on each side!
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