Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor(ounapuu.ee) |
Improving my focus by giving up my big monitor(ounapuu.ee) |
The middle screen is BenQ RD280U; the 3:2 ratio is amazing after so many widescreen ones. Never going back to coding on a widescreen.
One Dell UQ2720Q on each side, vertically.
One virtual desktop is Messages, Slack, and Outlook for all my comms needs.
Another is IDE & browser for development work.
Another is todo list, planner, notes, and browser for task management.
Having to constantly swap app between browser, email, IDE, slack, etc is interruptive. Being able to switch to a single-focus desktop with everything visible is much more productive for me and reduces context switching.
Is the 49" ultra wide or more 16:9/16:10?
Looks like it's 32:9 aspect ratio - it's this Samsung, it was on sale last week for $800: https://a.co/d/0f884LPO
- z launches conductor (coding agents with worktrees)
- w launches wezterm
- f launches firefox
- c launches chrome
- d launches obsidian
- s launches slack
So I'll keep one of these full screened on the main monitor at all times. And then I've got maybe spotify open on the laptop usually which I generally ignore most of the day.
And if I need two apps I'll use rectangle to tile windows side by side
It seems like a minor thing but it's a less cognitively burdensome workflow for me as the day goes on than cmd tab would be.
Also here's the link to conductor, I'm not affiliated but really like their tool imperfections and all https://www.conductor.build/
Also also, shimmering obsidian is great for alfred users. Can search notes in my vault with spotlight https://github.com/chrisgrieser/shimmering-obsidian
* I feel the key message here is "single vs multiple windows", not small vs big monitor. I love my 32" curved monitor. I too switched from having three monitors to having just one big monitor and staying with one maximizing window majority of time.
It's also role dependant. I spent few years as ops manager and multiple windows and situational awareness / task parallelization were important. Not saying it's a good thing but it was the name of the game.
Even without task parallelization, multiple windows are important for some roles. If I'm transforming a working excel into executive slide, it's nice to have them both up. If you are good at taking notes, having teams meeting and one note up is a life saver and super power. Etc
But yes - I think core message is "do not assume that prevalent wisdom or what others do, works for your task, job, and personality". As another example, I think dark mode is cool, all my cool friends use it, and it does not work for me on majority of applications. And that's ok... Not everybody is cool like that :-)
I've switched to Word akin to how I used to do it with Google Docs as that works much better.
Perhaps it's given away by "One" in the name (one simultaneous editor)? Or am I holding it wrong?
For shared artifacts we use word, excel or PowerPoint in corporate onedrive and it works shockingly well, with minor but important caveats - you can't usually edit the same exact box at the same time, and it can get confused with offline changes by multiple people. But online changes by multiple simultaneous people seems to work really well. I especially enjoy when one person is presenting slides, an executive makes a suggestion, and another team member makes the change real time on the same deck and it shows up in presentation.
We are just starting to experiment with some shared onenote notebooks, it seems to have a bit more learning curve and needs more discipline and structure than the rest of ms office.
I actually redesigned my desk a bit so my ultra wide's left side is directly in front of me to compensate for this, which is a bit weird, but ... it's working so far.
That's why I highlighted GNOME getting usable fractional scaling out of the box, it makes all the difference. Previously I relied on the large text accessibility feature, but toggling it on/off depending on what monitor I used was a pain.
When I was in IT I had a second monitor, but I only ever put terminals and rdp screens for remote computers on it. This screen my machine, other screen other machine.
The only thing that does make me wonder at times is that my video in a zoom'ish app looks different than other people's video in some manner, but all that means is that maybe I need 1 backup and mirrored display for video calls, but maybe I can live with it.
For development, I've always been happy with a 13" screen and nothing else. Not only that, but having all apps in full screen. It brings so much clarity to my mind. Exceptions (because f*ck dogma, right?) have been when I was in charge of monitoring some long-running process, in which case a secondary screen in vertical layout was very useful. Another one was for music making with Ableton Live: 2 screens was much more practical, independently of each individual screen size.
Just because of the setups I've just described, I've been looked at weird, or asked way too much questions. go figure.
Main thing that was contributing to that is Cosmic desktop environment is has amazing defaults and adaptive scaling and if I need two displays just put window in second workspace.
For years, I resisted even using an external monitor, preferring to work on my laptop's monitor instead. I finally switched to using a monitor when poor posture started getting uncomfortable.
I almost always have just one window on the screen, maximized. I'm also using virtual desktops to switch between the browser/app and the IDE. This kind of setup really helps me with the focus, but at the same time it's not too annoying.
I used to just use the macOS virtual desktops, but with the Apple Silicon transition, they also added annoyingly slow animation for desktop switching. That can not be turned off (seriously, wtf, Apple?). I jumped to FlashSpace the second I found about it.
I need to do cross referencing quite a bit, and even with quick iterations in development, I like having documentation and output (terminal, browser...) side by side with Emacs as my IDE (I don't use Emacs' built-in window management as much, but it'd be the same thing).
Using large 16:9 screens ensures I keep enough vertical space compared to ultra-wides, and high res is crucial for smooth text (scaled properly).
That said, shout out to the well being app that comes with the latest gnome version! I allow it to force me to get up and walk around for five minutes at awkward times. I do light exercises like push ups and australian pull ups or get coffee while I wait. Being forced off the computer while I'm trying to focus actually makes the day more interesting.
I can't stay "in the zone" while waiting for Claude. On the other hand whenever I'm blocked on something, I just ask it and get my answer way earlier than I would if I used a search engine.
It's quite the dilemma.
Personally i love a big monitor, i use 32” screens (but only 1 at a time) on my Mac, pc and gaming pc. But in reality i do most ‘real work’ on my 16” mbp. And i drop the res to make everything bigger snd nice to read on the laptop.
Have you tried using a big monitor but just keeping windows as full-screen? I find this to be much less distracting. And of course, phone face down and notifications turned off.
Not my app, but I'll plug Dayflow here (YC backed). It's really great for measuring what you're working on, and they have local only mode for full privacy.
- 11in Macbook Air
- 16in Macbook Pro
- 1 X 27in monitor mounted with MB Pro in clamshell mode
- Linux Mint desktop on old Dell Inspiron with 4gb of RAM
and after using all of these to try and increase my productivity, I'm still an unfocused and possibly ADD riddled human. I'm not cut from the same cloth as my other productive peers who do not watch much YouTube and can type away at a black `vim` terminal on one half of their screen with software documentation on the other half of the screen.
What stops you? Have you tried ripping the bandaid off, putting documentation on one screen and vim on the other? Putting your cellphone in a drawer across the room? Pulling the plug on your router if need be?
With Xmonad I had 10 spaces on a single laptop screen (actually however many I wanted) with the flick of a button. And yes, I know about hacks like aerospace and the others that require disabling system integrity
You working out? PT?
After reading the first sentences, I knew this was going to come up. I have an ultrawide screen but never watch videos next to my work. It just doesn’t work. When I’m working, I want to be productive. Somehow it’s also really bad for the brain to put things side by side as anyone I know who does this has poor focus
27" @ WQHD res seems just about right. 4K if you absolutely must.
I wouldn’t use a display from this close. It’s better for my eyes to have a larger display a little further away. I’m closer to 30” with a 32” and another desk with a 38”
> but for people who read, code, do productive stuff, it's too much screen, too much pixels.
I do all of those things and find the opposite. So it would seem it’s more down to individual preference.
> WQHD res seems just about right.
I would dislike this. Especially for text and even more at closer distances.
Set the default window width to 1/4 or 1/3 of the screen width (depending on the screen size) and it's easy to keep just the right context visible.
I do wish it had virtual outputs though. Such that we can either combine screens to form a big monitor, or subdivide a screen to make multiple outputs. I have been doing some coding on a 42" OLED tv, and I really want both a side tray and an overhead output. There's stilch which does this; I wonder if River is capable enough to do something similar. https://github.com/wegel/stilch
This has zero to do with an ultra-wide monitor and all to do with a lack of self-discipline.
I bought one of the first 38" ultra-wide monitor that came out from LG and, ten years later, I'm still rocking on it every day.
You know what? My main computer doesn't even have sound. You read that correctly. No sound. So no Youtube vids. No games. Not that I'd be tempted: but because I've got actually zero need for sound on that machine.
And I'm no luddite: I've got two servers at home, more in datacenters, countless Pi's, NUCs, and laptops. But on my work machine: it is no sound and a 38" ultra-wide.
If you need to use a monitor the size of a stamp to make sure you can't run youtube vids at the same time you're working, the issue is you, not the monitor.
I also can't ever focus on doing tasks like programming and such since I got my big monitor.
Although I definitely can't give up my 3 27 inch monitors...
I tried the big chonkers, but the humble 27" 1440p is unbeatable for me. I'm not being paid enough money to worry about that many pixels.
I use one 24 inch monitor with my laptops, and keep all the interruptions like Messages/Signal and Mail on the smaller screen. Nothing else generates notifications.
It's a matter of discipline,that's all.
Imagine sitting through those lengthy team calls and having to concentrate on BS for 1-2 hours.
Nah, I’d rather focus on getting things done in the meantime.
A different angle: multiple screens can cause neck problems if you’re tilting your head in a weird direction for too long
Still keep a second monitor around, but it's exclusively for screen sharing. Speaking of, having a dedicated monitor for sharing is really nice:
- It can have a standard resolution and aspect ratio (1080p) which is perfect for sharing
- It is a clean slate. I only share stuff I consciously move to that monitor. No need to clear my screen or burden my colleagues with unrelated windows in our call.
- Yes app sharing exists, but screen sharing is just more reliable and works better for sharing multiple things sequentially/simultaneously.
Going to try not plugging the monitor at all, it might save my sleep.
I use a 32" monitor and I find that I use only the center of the screen. I would downsize if not for vertical real estate.
Pull up the BMI chart, do the calculation. Get to normal at 1kg drop a week. Done. It works. Back pain solved.
AFAIK it’s also one of the reasons we all get “glued” to smartphone screens.
In this paper, more than 20 deg visual field for a screen and subject performance went down: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01678...
I sit with my eyes about 1 metre from the screen, and a 27" portrait display is approx 33 cm wide. So I think that's tan(FOV/2) = 16.5/100 = 0.165; FOV/2 = atan 0.165; FOV/2 = 9.37 degrees; FOV = 2*9.37 = 18.74 degrees. It's almost perfect!
(But even if my maths is wrong: this has proven a good setup for me, which I've used for many years now, and I recommend it to anybody thinking of experimenting with their desk setup. Many monitors come with a stand that allows rotation, so it's not necessarily difficult to try. If you don't like it, you can always switch back.)
Example of player Yekindar: https://preview.redd.it/yekindar-xd-v0-zsm7fzd5jd5e1.jpeg?wi...
"I need you to be focused!"
I'm considering a startup to make millennial blinders:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinders
Of course, being an aging boomer, using an 85" monitor isn't decreasing my focus at all. I just look at the part of the screen I'm using at the moment.
Personally I find it helpful to be able to spread windows out on that giant screen so that any one of them is instantly available at a glance (and I still use 8 "desktops"). Of course, I also don't reboot, well maybe once or twice a year after a kernel update. So setting all those windows up isn't something I do every time I sit at the computer.
I do feel sorry for the generations born into internet brain damage (seriously). My son is GenZ and (thankfully) struggles with the typical symptoms less than others, but is still affected.
This is clearly a consequence of growing up with constantly network connected hand held computers, and the maliciously crafted web platforms that exploited that constant connectedness.
Once I realized that in order to answer a single question I needed to Cmd+Tab at least four times, often more, I added two monitors and it’s dramatically lowered my stress level.
FYI, on older MacBooks you can’t add more than one extra screen, but if you get a DisplayLink dongle it works perfectly.
Managing windows with OS idiosyncrasies becomes a task in itself.
However, I've also learned recently it depends what you're doing.
Software development, I just want one single maximized window on a single laptop monitor. If I have a near-retina DPI monitor with 120hz+ (I can't deal with low DPI fuzziness and low refresh all day) I'll usually have a 3-4 window layout on a single monitor with the IDE taking up half the screen.
There is a minor cognitive hit from switching focus between monitors for things like reading documentation, so I don't like doing that.
Music production? Man, I could probably use like 3+ monitors. Main stems view, a separate monitor for open VSTs, a separate monitor for video, a separate one for piano roll maybe. The window juggling gets really cumbersome on a single monitor.
My friend who is a professional musician (makes music for TV shows) uses 3 large TVs for music production.
I’d say monitor position and ergonomics matter way more than screen size.
Navigating a stack of apps with alt+tab, ctrl+tab is extremely efficient. I only miss the extra space when looking at spreadsheets or comparing things in different windows.
Some laptops have a pitiful screen height, avoid those.
Ultrawide is an extra screen size that many web devs forget about. Good design can take advantage of it. But some fluid designs look terrible without constraints.
I ran a vertical setup, with a monitor above my laptop. Not a bad way to go if you want more space for auxiliary apps.
Focus is essential for productivity. Do whatever it takes to get there.
I'm posting this because it's something I went through in my career and I hope it helps someone who is in a similar situation
I was undiagnosed ADHD until my 30s. In high school and university I was able to brute force my way through and get reasonably good grades. I had a really rocky start to my career in software. I was always getting middling performance reviews along the lines of "You're really good when you're working, but your productivity is terrible". Meanwhile my stress level was crazy high despite not exactly doing lots of overtime or anything else
Even treated, ADHD can make focus very difficult. Undiagnosed, it is devastating
Bringing it back to the words I quoted, I agree entirely. Focus is essential for productivity. Part of doing whatever it takes to get there might mean getting diagnosed and medicated
If it works for you as it worked for me it's fine, but don't feel frustrated if you end up recreating bad habits in these kinds of setup. They can work but they don't really treat the root cause of the addiction.
My wish is that macOS would let you group desktops together in a way that solved both of these problems:
- Switching desktops across multiple monitors at once
- Merging and splitting desktops when going from multiple monitors to one monitor
Multiple desktops are critical to my workflow and how I mentally organize my digital workspace. I wish there was more customization or more powerful features around it.
I have found some hacky options to do this, but they are just too janky for my taste. I would love to have Apple implement this at the OS level so I don't need to keep experimenting with Aerospace/Rectangle/Hammerspoon... Apple please allow me to disable the destop transition animations and make your OS feel snappy for once.
Not while coding, but I use mine very frequently in the other 60% of my job.
That is what is killing your focus and giving ADHD-like symptoms (supposing obviously that you don’t actually have it).
Never ever put something to play on background while you do something. That on the long run will kill your attention span and focus ability.
Yes, if you were doing that, almost any change to your environment that stops that will be good. I don't think you'd have to give up your monitor.
Up to a point, more screen real-estate is a universally good thing. Although beyond, say, two 24-27" screens or one great big one, you get into rapidly diminishing returns.
This is true for programming (where editor = IDE and documentation = API docs for some thing or other), 3d modelling (where editor = CAD software, and documentation = reference drawings, diagrams, etc), and even gaming (where "editor" = Blue Prince, and "documentation" = a gigantic Obsidian vault with all my notes).
In all of those cases, I'm decidedly not multitasking. I have multiple applications running, but they're all contributing to the task at hand. Instead, I find that things having a fixed position in space they live in, and not needing to cmd-tab and find the right window/application are two things that help maintain focus.
Maybe the fact that slack and outlook take a painful amount of time to open is a feature not a bug
A factor in my debilitating back pain for me (was 31 and fit; now 37; getting better) was coping with back pain by moving to unergonomic positions like the couch/bed, which led to different and thus compounding compensations, and thus more complex recovery.
Now if my back is painful in a position, I take it as a signal to move my body, not find another static position that doesn't cause pain.
That can sometimes be difficult to do, with job/family requirements though.
Sorry to derail the post, but I hope this helps someone avoid my issue.
To me, since I always need to have two apps side by side, a 34" screen have done wonders.
I have my main app as a regular 16/9 window, and the secondary on the side.
By putting the screen at the right distance and height, I don't have to move my head and my eyes just move a little to go through everything on the screen.
And my main window still give me more information than if I had full-screened it on my MBP 14" screen (typically, I can see my whole Jira dashboard on the 34" screen while I have to scroll on the 14").
On the other hand, having two screens (laptop + external) is terrible. Not the same resolution, having to turn the head...
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One thing that is bothering me reading the article: I find the whole clutter on OP's desktop quite distracting!
The cables coming out of the laptop, the things on the wall behind the laptop... That's something that would definitely kill my focus!
At the office and at home, I've put a blank wall/separator in front of me so the only thing in my vision is the screen.
I normally run applications maximized on my 28" 4k, unless I need input from 2 applications at the same time, then I tile them.
Working from my work-issued 16" Macbook Pro or any other of my laptops is a pain because of the limited estate - it's hard to see patterns at a glance or get the whole context when I can only see 30 lines of text that is truncated at <=80 columns. Plus, the fact that the keyboard isn't detachable from the screen forces bad habits on the posture.
My main home office has 5 monitors, and i still have to swipe between desktops regularly. I used to have 6, but two ultrawides stacked one above the other was a bit painful and I developed a back pain after a while.
My on the road setup typically involves a folding portable monitor (asus zenscreen duo, or something to that effect - that is 2x 1080p). Easily enough, and I don't really see a decrease in my efficiency.
But I sometimes do long distance flights and then I code/work on a single screen. I absolutely can do the same thing that I can do with my 6 screen setup with almost not noticeable effect on productivity as well. Could it be that the extra screens are just useless and an illusion of added productivity?
It really depends on what kind of work I'm doing - and if I'm on the plane, I'm going to likely do work that does well single-screen; replying to emails, dicking around on HN, etc.
But in maxscreen mode (or at least two screens) then I'm "doing" something on the main screen while looking at reference material, output, chat, other things on the second.
When I work on frontend I much rather have preview on second screen and most likely reference next to it.
When writing documentation or requirements I cannot imagine working on a single screen as essentially I am integrating multiple data sources into one, like I need to see how app looks now and before release, what changed and still have my working space for draft.
Switching windows to quickly look up documentation is fine but when creating requirements having time to understand what needs to be in which place how it has to evolve I need to have it right there so that my imagination doesn’t runaway.
But overall, I do like the idea that you don't actually have to see everything at once. Also takes focus away I guess. I would love to see a study on this which tries to actually measure this.
I’ve always felt that I can alt-tab 2-3 times per second and that it’s faster to not move my eyes. Why look at docs next to code when I can only read one at a time anyway? It’s also embedded in my muscle memory to switch to specific apps by Apple-space typing 2-3 characters. So Firefox is “Apple-space-fi”. It’s so fast I feel slowed by having apps side-by-side.
Anything that requires me dragging windows to their special place is a non-starter. To me that feels like playing with my food. I wonder if this is just because I type very quickly?
I’m aware I’m in the minority.
The corners of the screen are the easiest targets to hit because they have effectively infinite size (see Fitts's Law). The mouse wheel is the best input to use because the mouse wheel is always non-destructive in standard desktop GUI software (equivalent to HTTP GET, not HTTP PUT). So long as your switcher control does not wrap around, you can set your two most important desktops as the first and last desktops, and access them with no conscious thought by jerking your arm and blindly scrolling the mouse wheel.
I use a patched version of lxqt-panel for this. The official version wraps around while switching desktops with the mouse wheel. This is IMO a bad idea because you always have the option of clicking the numbers directly, so it doesn't save any time. I have all animations disabled (essential for this system to be tolerable). I use three virtual desktops, with the the middle one reserved for less important tasks. The middle one requires conscious thought to access because I have to scroll the mouse wheel more carefully. But when accessing the main two I scroll the mouse wheel fast enough that I don't notice it.
Theoretically it would be possible to have unconscious access to 8 desktops this way (mouse wheel up and mouse wheel down for all 4 corners) but I haven't implemented this because I'm happy with two.
After reading this, I have let the second one stay off and then unplugged and I can already notice the difference a lot. I didn't switch between apps much or procrastinated as much. It's only been a day or two and I have yet to see how I fare in long term. For now, I am happy.
Aerospace improved my productivity a lot on that front. My main apps/windows are now bound to an alt+key combination - I can easily switch without alt+tabbing like in the dark ages.
All my windows usually take up the full screen - I simply can't stand a window that doesn't fill the entire screen - not sure if that's some kind of OCD. The cognitive load of managing apps and spaces was quite high at the beginning, but now it's just muscle memory. I do recognize that it's not for everyone, but works very well for me.
The biggest improvement I've found for my focus is to force myself to close any open tabs/windows that are not absolutely necessary roughly every two hours. I used to be one of those people with 800 tabs open in the browser and 20 application windows spread across 8 desktop spaces. Was a concentration mess. Requiring myself to "clean up" periodically has really helped.
I have an instance of Postman open on my work laptop, and the useful area of the output constitutes maybe 20% of the screen.
Do you just scroll around endlessly every 2 seconds? Or do you have amazing eyesight and use tiny fonts?
Not GP, but I'll be forever thankful to have been able to make my career focused on embedded software.
In my line of work there's nothing to view because there's no visual component at all. If my user(s) "see" the results of my work, then it means I've catastrophically fucked up.
I spend 90% of my time working in vim within XTerm.
The closest I get to UI/UX is a UART debugging interface.
This "rule" is especially useful now that I'm coding primarily through agents. Secret weapon number 2, while everybody else is getting burned out running ten agents at once and producing slop, while I'm now writing more (and better) code than ever.
Your secret weapon isnt the laptop. Your secret weapon is a combination of a) actually giving a fuck about what you are doing, and b) the vibe of the workspace that makes you enjoy doing what you are doing.
Focus comes from a reinforcement loop of happy hormones that come from doing what you are doing. You can't focus on things that you don't enjoy doing.
1. Center top: videoconferencing space. Approximately 1/3 width and 1/2 height of screen is used for Zoom/Meet/Teams. 2. Top left: chat (Slack now, previously Teams or Google Chat). Half height and 1/4 width. 3. Bottom left: Calendar (Zoom now, Google previously). Half height and 1/4 width. 4. Bottom center: primary browser window with dozens of tabs open, also used for email & calendar. 1/2 width and 1/2 height. 5. bottom right: Claude 6. Top right: working document(s). 1/3 width and 3/4 height. When I finish something, I'll close this, or occasionally move to a tab group in my primary browser.
This method of organization works pretty well and allows me to 1) get work done, 2) monitor comms, and 3) not miss meetings. If I need to focus and not allow others to disturb me, I'll just minimize the Slack & primary browser windows and make the working doc browser window(s) larger.
This is all plugged into a Macbook (14") that sits on my desk. The laptop screen contains a single browser window signed into a personal profile, and is used exclusively for non-work stuff -- mostly email.
Previously I would be "alt-tabbing" and constantly losing focus. Like stepping through a doorway and forgetting why you came into that room.
LOL
Im currently typing this on a work issued Macbook thats about 2 years old at this point, and 40% of the time, when I plug in a cable, it decides it wants to turn on and turn off hdmi output in rapid succession.
MacBook Pro M1 Pro or MacBook Pro M5
Sounds like something is really broken in your setup?
On the other hand, sleeping/waking Thunderbolt displays on my ThinkPad with Linux regularly leads to kernel panics, across several kernel versions.
I did multiple monitors for a long time, and probably my best productivity thing was switching to one AND ONLY ONE big enough 4k. Basically allows me to switch between "one focused monitor most of the time" and "the equivalent of 2 or 3, maybe even 4" if I need it.
I am never gonna sway away from i3 [1], a notification free tiled window desktop system is just way too convenient. When I have to bootup a Windows VM for work (I am a malware analyst most of the time) I am losing my mind with all the notifications and blocking popup windows all the time. I have no idea why people are tolerating this as their work setup. It is hostile design to its users.
I use my computer to work. I don't want a computer that works me all the time.
[1] for desktop/GUI apps I use a mixture of GNOME forks and LXDE apps. Everything that makes popups when running in the background is avoided.*
counterpoint: this doesn’t appear the case with Apple, as they have defaulted their OS entirely to retina-level density now, removed subpixel rendering, and anything non-5K may look off (and you need to go through hoops to make it look well).
As such, I’m typing this in a MacBook with 3x5K displays connected.
I put my browser on 2k monitor so no need to fight with resolution and other things
but IDE is always on 4k monitor, no scaling, slightly larger font size, so I can see more code. And all the log, and note app are on 3rd 1080p monitor.
And Wayland gnome was pretty solid for me, until recently gnome-shell eating over 2/3gb on long run. Switched to niri for the time being, which is working pretty solid.
At least personally, there is not a single setup that works for everything, I'm switching basically as often as I change what I work on.
If you can focus most of your time on a single window then a single monitor is just fine.
But when you have to reason across multiple windows very very often then multiple displays help a lot.
For me it’s a bit messy: i am a cloud engineer and the kind of work i do varies multiple times a day. At some point I’m writing terraform code and all i need is my editor and a shell (sometimes my editor is in my shell) while ten minutes later i might be doing incident response and then i need a multitude of windows (shell, web browser showing logs, web browser showing metrics, web browser showing the aws console, web browser showing the meeting with other people handling the incident with me, shell, other stuff)…
So yeah, it really depends.
When monitors were 1024 by 768, I needed more than one monitor. Now that everything is designed to be one’s only window at 1920 by 1080, I need a 4k monitor. I imagine that when 4k becomes the default, I will need a 16k monitor.
Do you not feel like there's a similar hit from switching full screen windows? Or is your documentation within your full screen IDE?
I feel like it should be, but in practice it isn't.
Sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but switching between windows on the same screen has near-zero context loss.
I also use a 3x3 grid of workspaces (center one is browser, all the others are dedicated to a single project/context/session/task each), and navigating workspaces (modifier+shift+arrows) also has near-zero contextual hit.
Even more counter-intuitively, while a second screen produces a large and irritating context-switch cost, using a little (physical, pen-and-paper) notepad next to me has even less context-switch loss than switching windows or workspaces do. It happens without me even realising it - sometimes I'd arise from a long session of coding and be surprised at some notes I made while coding.
There's probably something learnable about the human mind in all of this.
Tiling window managers are a good solution.
If you created a window right now, where will it go? Which window will it take its space from? Does it use your focused window? Your mouse position? If your WM supports mixed floating & tiling, how does it go when you flip a window between them? etc. That's all cognitive load when you aren't familiar and still requires some hand control when you are.
Dual 4k 27" monitors on Linux with KDE Plasma near perfect.
I’d like to try a squarish monitor, but it seems to be a barren wasteland of choice: mateview, dualup, or flexscan. Meh.
Still, even 5K at 27" is not without noticeable jagged edges in diagonal lines and textual characters (though I've only tried 4K at 24", but that's a similar DPI and angular resolution if at the same distance) if your visual acuity (with or without correction) is around 20/20 or better (mine is better with glasses/contacts).
I hate how the text looks with a Mac on a 4K 32" screen, let alone 4K 42" screen.
People often seem shocked that I use mostly 4K screens, but I've had one of them for almost 10 years now.
It also seems that 8K has died for now. I think we still have time.
Firefox, MS Edge (my MS Teams sandbox) and any GTK apps do work.
Can't switch because of old hardware and vulkan/mesa legacy reasons.
Linux, however, has worked great ever since I got the USB-C DP Alt-mode screen back around 8 years ago with my Thinkpad X1 Carbons over the years. I do have trouble getting a stable 8K at 60Hz through it with Iris Xe (gen13), but that does not work with Macs either.
Linux did have issues with using different scaling factors on multiple connected screens, but I only ever used one monitor so it never bothered me.
On top of that, it still does support subpixel rendering, and you can even tune pixel layout (RGB, BGR...) for VA and OLED panels, so text never looks crappy or janky as it can on Macs with low DPI screens (eg. large 4k screens of 40"+, but noticeable even on 32" 4k).
The only saving grace was that the Macbook has external HDMI which works flawlessly, just like it has been for the past decade on any laptop. But not all models of Macs have had external HDMI. My last one did not, and it was a piece of crap, that ended up also swelling the battery somehow.
for personal use I gave up after almost twenty years of thinkpad+linux and got a MacBook neo. So far it’s been great, much much better than my shit-tier ryzen-based x13g1 with 8c/16t and 32gb RAM. (Edit: it’s also more reliable when driving my 34” 1440p external display).
The most important thing is to have a way to search through the pile. (Raycast window search is pretty good.)
> If you created a window right now, where will it go?
The new window becomes the focused window. It's inserted into the master position. Existing windows shift down the (conceptual) stack.
> Does it use your focused window?
It uses the same screen space, yes.
> Which window will it take its space from?
All of the other visible windows. It recomputes the tiles so that all tiles except the master become smaller, to make room for the new one.
> Your mouse position?
By default, mouse position is ignored. XMonad is keyboard-centric by design. You can set a mouse-follow configuration variable if you want. I've never tried it.
> If your WM supports mixed floating & tiling, how does it go when you flip a window between them?
It recomputes the tiles in much the same way as above. It's as though you deleted the window from the tiling and it becomes floating. And vice versa. It's a very consistent model.
I find it very natural and predictable. As far as "cognitive load" goes, that seems like an exaggeration, but again I haven't used hyprland.
If by "hand control" you mean using the mouse, that's definitely not needed for window management. In fact by default, XMonad doesn't even support resizing tiles using the mouse, and I've never tried to enable that. I do commonly use the mouse for switching focus, usually because I'm navigating to some location in another window anyway, in which case focus moves automatically.
For curiosities sake, what window manager did you try?
And most algorithms for management are deterministic. The position and the size of the new windows is always known.
