When I started at LexisNexis, I was used to using multiple monitors when I worked. There’s plenty of studies, blog postings, whatever, that show how it’s a benefit to have multiple screens and added real estate. I’ve had the discussion with several people, and it seems that you have to actually try it to like it. There’s three pieces of software that I use that let me do a mashup of sorts of my double screens and my laptop. Ultramon, Gridmove and Synergy. I got wind of the first two from Coding Horror, which has some other neat stuff, including sweet looking monitor arms that I’m coveting right now.
Ultramon
Maximize a windows across two desktops, flip it between the windows, window specific taskbar, etc etc. Overall, great tool for manipulating stuff on the screen across multiple monitors. There’s stuff I haven’t even touched about custom sizing and positioning of icons, windows, etc.
Gridmove
Really excited about this one, but I haven’t gotten into it fully. It lets you snap windows to particular locations with the mouse or keyboard, so that you can create and fix a workspace where things are exactly where you want them.
Synergy
Coolest of the three. Right now I’ve got my laptop to the left of my main monitor, and my second screen to the right of the main screen. I’m sharing a keyboard and mouse across my PC and laptop with Synergy. So I can move my mouse off the PC second screen to the right, and it shows up on the left of the laptop. Move it to the left off the laptop, and it jumps back to the PC second screen. Move it to the right of the laptop, and it jumps to the PC main monitor. If I can get Outlook set up on the laptop, then I can keep all communication (IRC and email) running on it, keep my editors (emacs and FlexBuilder) on the center, screen, and browsers on the right. Only way I can think to improve it is to have a shortcut that will jump me to the different computer automatically.
Note – want to really slow things down on a multiple monitor system? Open a video in iTunes. Then move the video window to another monitor and watch things ssssssslllllllllooooooooowwwwwww doooooooowwwwwwwnnnnnnnnn. Don’t know if that’s a video thing, common to all software, or an Apple thing. The way they force Apple conventions into windows apps (think Safari maximize on windows and you’ll know what I mean).
One other piece of software that I wish I could use (also from CodingHorror) is called a Switcher. It’s a replacement for alt-tab, but it allows you to search for the window you want. Exactly what I’d like to do, but Vista only. Another replacement I tried for a while was TaskSwitchXP, but it wasn’t quite right. I want the search capability and the numbering capability, so that I know my browser is always window 4, for example. Someday……
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