RE: Business case for dual monitors

["Sam Beard" <sbeard -at- oico -dot- com>]

Kevin,

   I have to agree with this. I also have both monitors with the center
seam pretty much directly in front of me and the monitors angled in
oh-so-slightly. I usually have Outlook and a browser open on one screen,
with Frame open on the other. If I need an instance of the software I'm
working on open, then it opens on the screen without Frame. Likewise
with a preview window of screen captures or photos of products that need
to go into the Frame document. Photoshop usually opens on the same
screen as Frame. It works well for me and I really find myself missing
it when I go home and only have the one monitor! I'll probably be
getting a second monitor for home at some point. Right now, I'm saving
for a new Nikon digital SLR, though!

Samuel I. Beard, Jr.
Technical Writer
OI Analytical
979 690-1711 Ext. 222
sbeard -at- oico -dot- com
 

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sbeard=oico -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sbeard=oico -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
Of McLauchlan, Kevin
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 3:22 PM
To: Char James-Tanny; TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Business case for dual monitors

Char James-Tanny claimed:
> > As I recall, there are ways to indicate which monitor should receive
> >  notifications and particular windows on most dual monitor setups.
Is
> >  this not the case?
> 
> I'm mostly able to control it here (using nVidia with two LCDs). Some
> apps overrule me ;-) and persist in opening on the primary monitor,
> but most "remember" and open in the last place I had them open. (One
> thing to note: if I open something...file, email, whatever, move it
> where I want, but don't close it before opening another item of the
> same type, then the second occurrence opens where the first occurrence
> originally opened.)
> 
> I currently have Outlook and a HAT on my primary monitor, and
> MailWasher, IE7, Firefox, a Word doc, and a PDF open on the secondary.
> 
> Oh, and I've positioned my monitors so that I'm lined up to the left
> of the seam. I do most of my work on my primary monitor and use the
> secondary for reference. It works for me :-)

If I had a third monitor, it would have e-mail on it. Then one of the
other two would have current doc or Help that I'm working on, and the
third would have source materials and/or the application that I'm
documenting.

As it is, I've got the two, and I keep a lot open on either. Usually, if
I'm working on a project and a quickie comes along, I just leave the
project doc open (in Word or Flare or FrameMaker) and open the quickie
stuff on top. Then another quickie comes along, then another...  Then I
have to reboot.  Drat.

But until Windows leaks its brains out its ear and demands a reboot, the
pile of windows on my desktop can be stripped back and I'm right where I
left this-or-that project. For me, the visual cues from the working doc
- at whatever page I left - and the supporting doc or application on the
other monitor are usually enough to get my head right back into what I
was doing before I was interrupted-interrupted-interrupted-...

As for the physical experience, I'm centered on the seam between the two
monitors they are arranged to face me, meaning that the angle between
them is less than 180-degrees ...  about 170 seems comfortable at the
distance I keep them (arm's length plus a foot). 
If I'm working hard on one monitor, and need to see something for a
moment on the other, it's just a quick swing of the eyeballs or _maybe_
as much as a ten-degree turn of my head... hardly onerous.

If I'm actually switching work focus to the other screen for a while,
then it's a ten-degree swing of my entire body. That's what swivel
chairs are for. I don't even need to adjust my hand or keyboard
position.

The likelihood (as somebody else mentioned) of moving a window
off-screen and having (say) Outlook open all succeeding e-mails
off-screen is exceedingly low, and no more likely than if I had only one
screen.  I don't know why that one poster had an open-side for his
mousing. Across my two monitors, all OUTER perimeters are mouse
barriers. Only the common side is mouse-permeable.

So, for me, all the difference between one monitor and two is positive
difference.

Kevin
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