I feel like people who need that many monitors are actually in need of (a) better window management (/manager).
Consider it like a tiling window manager, but each monitor is a ‘tile’, allowing each tiled application to still have a full-sized window that’s not cramped.
And, yes, of course there’s a center monitor that’s the main workhorse. But I want other things to be visible at a glance at any time, without needing to move or cover up my main work piece to do so. For me, I’m a writer, and the 5 extra screens are often used for notes, outlines, maps, research material, etc. That way, I can have all that stuff open and available to reference with a glance, without needing to pause my typing on the main screen, without needing to take focus* away from the main document I’m working on.
*By focus, I mean in the window manager sense – the main document’s app remains the one in focus, the one receiving keyboard input, so I can continue typing even while looking at my notes.
Needing to switch between apps and take the focus away from my main document in order to check my outline/notes/whatever would really slow me down and would just be a pain, no matter how easy switching is. Trying to tile it all onto one monitor sounds horribly cramped, making each window small and difficult to work with. (Maybe if I tiled it all on one huge monitor, it could be acceptable … but 6 small monitors are cheaper than one really huge one. It would have to be a massive single screen in order to have the same amount of screen space and resolution as 6 monitors.)
That’s very enlightening actually. Different use cases and work types have different needs and require different setups I guess, yeah.
I’m a programmer, so I often have a window open with documentation, or the result of my work, beside my editor. But rarely do I need to keep typing while looking at the other window, so that’s a different scenario for me. Every window is kind of my “main” window, you could say. Very linear work. Do an edit, examine the results; repeat.
I dunno, I never thought they made awful decisions. Just very opinionated and perhaps inflexible, but I think they made them in the name of progress and outreach (thinking of Gnome 2 to 3 updates). A lot of conservative power users were upset. But I was excited, even as a long-time user. I thought it looked fresh. Then I discovered tiling window management.
Consider it like a tiling window manager, but each monitor is a ‘tile’, allowing each tiled application to still have a full-sized window that’s not cramped.
And, yes, of course there’s a center monitor that’s the main workhorse. But I want other things to be visible at a glance at any time, without needing to move or cover up my main work piece to do so. For me, I’m a writer, and the 5 extra screens are often used for notes, outlines, maps, research material, etc. That way, I can have all that stuff open and available to reference with a glance, without needing to pause my typing on the main screen, without needing to take focus* away from the main document I’m working on.
*By focus, I mean in the window manager sense – the main document’s app remains the one in focus, the one receiving keyboard input, so I can continue typing even while looking at my notes.
Needing to switch between apps and take the focus away from my main document in order to check my outline/notes/whatever would really slow me down and would just be a pain, no matter how easy switching is. Trying to tile it all onto one monitor sounds horribly cramped, making each window small and difficult to work with. (Maybe if I tiled it all on one huge monitor, it could be acceptable … but 6 small monitors are cheaper than one really huge one. It would have to be a massive single screen in order to have the same amount of screen space and resolution as 6 monitors.)
That’s very enlightening actually. Different use cases and work types have different needs and require different setups I guess, yeah.
I’m a programmer, so I often have a window open with documentation, or the result of my work, beside my editor. But rarely do I need to keep typing while looking at the other window, so that’s a different scenario for me. Every window is kind of my “main” window, you could say. Very linear work. Do an edit, examine the results; repeat.
Thanks for sharing your perspective!
Congratulations: you are now wiser than a Gnome dev.
Why do I sense some resentment there 😅
I dunno, I never thought they made awful decisions. Just very opinionated and perhaps inflexible, but I think they made them in the name of progress and outreach (thinking of Gnome 2 to 3 updates). A lot of conservative power users were upset. But I was excited, even as a long-time user. I thought it looked fresh. Then I discovered tiling window management.