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To those with 2+ monitors on your machine: What's your use case, and how much does it actually boost your productivity?

I’m mainly curious about software developers here, or anyone else whose computer is somewhat central to their life, be it professional or hobbyist.

I only have two monitors—one directly in front of me, and another to the right of it, angled toward me. For web development, I keep my editor on the main screen, and anything auxiliary (be that a dev build, a video, StackOverflow, etc.) on the side screen.

I wouldn’t mind a third monitor, and if I had one, I’d definitely use it for log/output, since currently it’s a floating window that I shuffle around however necessary. It could be smaller than the other two, and I might even turn it vertical so I could split the screen between output and a terminal, configuring a AutoHotKey script to focus the terminal.

What about y’all?

[ cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/13864053 ]

Lifter ,

Backend dev. I have an ultrawide (like two monitors in one).

Sometimes I need to test the full stack and need a lot (8+) terminals. I try to tile them all on a separate virtual desktop.

Most commonly though, I center my main application and can have two smaller, peripheral applications, one on each side.

When doing full stack, I need a browser, IDE and two terminals, tiled to give more space for the browser.

flashgnash ,

Virtual desktops, multi monitor and tmux allow me to go full ADHD, everything open at once, multiple projects on different desktops with like 5 windows open

Bonus points when I’ve got multiple terminals connected to the same tmux session because I forgot I already had it on another desktop or wanted it split with something else

My home setup is an ultrawide and a 1080p monitor. I find with tiling and virtual desktops more than that is surplus to requirement (even the 1080p monitor usually just has a browser open)

tiefling , (edited )

I’m a FE and A11y focused SWE

Laptop screen: IDE / main browser

Main monitor: terminal with dev server, and browser to localhost

I wish I could have a small, third monitor for just the terminal but my Mac struggles with one extra monitor. I also tend to work at 150% zoom because of terrible eyesight, so I don’t actually have that much screen real estate.

KeepFlying ,

Two and a half monitors here. Two connected to my desktop (one normal one vertical) and my laptop below them.

My laptop is for Teams calls, and the occasional reference page or video, but is mostly ignored until I need it. The main large monitor for editors and email. The vertical one for references and notes.

I would love a third monitor for the desktop but my desk is too narrow for that to be realistic.

Followupquestion ,

Four monitors plus the laptop screen. It’s…a lot visually, but my productivity is significantly higher than when I only had two and the laptop screen.

They’re arranged in a square so clockwise from top right:

  1. Work entry screen - this is where I’m typing a lot
  2. Reading screen - this is the general source of what I’m working on
  3. Outlook - I’m fully remote, Outlook is life
  4. File folders - I work mainly with two or three folders all day so it just makes sense to have them uncovered

Laptop - Teams!

Of note, I use a ton of keyboard shortcuts and have generally optimized my workflow so I’m not hitting the mouse nearly as often as my coworkers. Having Outlook and Teams each have their own screen means I can keep them open and see what’s coming in while still working on my stuff on other screens. Final thing I’ll say about the arrangement, because you’re probably visualizing this making for a good gaming setup, no it wouldn’t because of how the screens are placed.

No matter what, get yourself a mirror. I don’t like people suddenly appearing by me, and since I’m using noise-cancelling headphones with music/podcasts 40+ hours a week, this keeps me from jumping out of my skin.

PlutoniumAcid ,
@PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world avatar
  • Outlook (tasks, inbox, and calendar) on the left screen (sometimes vertical)
  • Main work window on the right screen.
  • Underneath is my laptop screen with Teams and Notepad++.

Remove 1 screen = reduce my productivity by maybe 20%.

Remove one more screen = reduce by at least another 40%.

stoy ,

At my past job every one in the IT team I was part of had three monitors, it was great when needed, but for the most part I was doing fine with two.

It was not uncommon to need one monitor for the work order, one monitor where I had the tool to work with and one to have the documentation of the tool.

At my current job I have two monitors, its fine.

morgan_423 ,
@morgan_423@lemmy.world avatar

I have two monitors but I do all my work on one the other is completely separate. Plays YouTube all day so that I have background noise to work with.

flashgnash ,

Less necessary now that I’m using a tiling wm, but previously it allows me to have IDE, program I’m working on, and a browser for googling without having to switch context to go between them

Plus if more is needed for whatever use case (terminal window for running application, teams, etc) I can split screen too

With a tiling wm at work I have teams/outlook on right, primary application (terminal/tmux, IDE, browser etc) center and googling browser on the left, and then a virtual desktop for each project I’m working on at the home if I need to switch for whatever reason

LockheedTheDragon ,

Three monitors for work and sometimes wish for a 4th. I’m doing research and pulling info from various documents into one document with commentary. A 4th would be nice so I could have email and chat on it. I’ve missed people asking me questions because I had documents in front of the chat and missed the pop-up. Sometimes you need 5 programes and then multiple documents open to understand what going on to explain it and then have to copy and paste from various documents.

For personal I liked it when I had 4 monitors. Main for web browsing and one for chats. The other two, one for playing video or music and the other to drag stuff to. The other two really shined when I would do photo editing or writing. Spreading things out over 3 monitors made things easier. Right now with my living situation I’m pretty much on a laptop so one monitor. Really makes photo editing not as fun and writing when I need to keep pulling up references stuff outright frustrating at times. I actually have more than 4 monitors at home since I kept picking them up at thrift stores, (DVI into USB adapters are nice) but didn’t find any real benefit to more than 4. But once everything settles I plan on getting my 4 monitors setup back and a Linux station for certain projects with 2 monitors and Raspberry Pi with 1 monitor.

PersonalDevKit ,

Three screens billed as “business expense” actually used as a sim racing rig.

But you will end up filling any screen space you have. When coding I very quickly fill out the space, to see files and folders I am intereacting with, communication apps, websites, IDE, ticket screen. Some days I wish I had 4.

MisterFrog ,
@MisterFrog@lemmy.world avatar

I’m an engineer (a non-IT engineer) and have 4. There is so much ensuring consistency between drawings and documents. I’d like 5 (including the inbuilt one) but graphics card on my high performance company laptop says no.

At least one for file explorer, then other three could be pdf editor, or word, or excel, or internet browser.

I regularly have 4 drawings open, plus another reference, plus windows explorer for file management.

It’s never enough. I could totally do with more than 4 screens, I’m already squeezing multiple drawings onto one monitor.

southernbrewer ,

I have two. Early career I found the second one absolutely improved my productivity - perhaps by 50% or more - as it helped me multitask really effectively.

Now, later in my career I have had kids for a while. My multitasking went out the window when I had kids - I find it hard to juggle more than one or maybe two things I’m working on at a time. I suspect this was due to poor sleep - parents never seem to really catch up to sleeping full nights like before kids. Instead of multitasking on lots of small things I transitioned to more in-depth work where I can focus for longer periods on a single thing.

Now, I think having a second monitor is still useful but I can function fine without it. It’s maybe a 10% boost if that.

BigBenis ,

I’ve got two monitors which mostly ends up meaning I have twice the amount of screen to lose application windows in.

ChillPenguin ,

I have 3 monitors. One I use for email/slack. The others I use for database and backend coding and VMs. I honestly the 3rd monitor is great. Aside from email and slack. I can use it for any additional documentation, requirements, or JIRA. Honestly, 3 monitors is the way to go in my opinion.

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