So earlier this week, my Viewsonic G790, 1 month shy of its 10th birthday, passed away. It was a nice quality 19" squareish CRT. I just replaced it with a 1 year old Dell 2405PFW, a 24" widescreen LCD. Since I am probably the last geek left on earth making the adjustment from CRT to LCD, I am overwelmed…not only from the CRT to LCD switch (everything’s so bright!) but also the size difference.
One thing in particular is the new resolution - 1920x1200…which is a big jump from the 1280x1024 I’ve been using the last 10 years. This site in particular is crazy, because if I maximise the window, entire paragraphs can show up on one line, making it tiresome to read from left to right.
I’m sure there are plenty of other dopers who have made the 1920x1200 plunge…do you usually read this site maximised, or in a smaller window, or what? Are there any new tricks or techniques which I should know about when “dealing” with all this extra resolution?
BTW - the main reason I wanted a monitor this size was for high def playback. I tried out a couple 1080p blu rays on here, and man oh man…
I don’t have quite the awesome resolution that you do, my widescreen being only 20.1", but I do have the same issue with the paragraphs.
I like to turn my monitor on its side, so the long dimension is the vertical one. It gives most sites a natural feeling page layout that is easy to read. Of course if you are going to watch a lot of movies it might be a pain to switch it around all the time …
actually this monitor DOES have a vertical mode. However, I had to put my center speaker underneath the display, in front of mounting base (on my old monitor, it sat on top of it) so I don’t have room to turn it vertically. Nor do I want to put that kind of wear-and-tear on the arm, since it’s the one piece that seems to be very cheaply made.
I wouldn’t read maximized. Just adjust your window so that it’s got maximum vertical height and about 800-1000 pixels of width. Then you can have another app open beside your browser. You can use that space to do things you never thought of before - for example, you can open notepad beside your browser, and use it to make notes while you’re reading threads or copying parts of messages you want to quote.
I don’t have a widescreen monitor - i have two monitors side by side. That allows me to run two applications and stiill use the maximize button for both. But if I had one widescreen monitor, that’s what I’d do.
What Sam said – once you’re on a bigger monitor, its not that useful to maximize anything (there are exceptions – timeline applications line video editors are glorious on a big monitor, and of course Photoshop as well). Just get used to doing a little more window shuffling, which is pretty easy to adapt to.
About two weeks ago I upgraded from a 15" LCD to a 22" LCD widescreen, primarily so I could watch videos and surf at the same time. I minimize my browser so that it fills about 40% of the screen and size the media player to fill the rest. My only regret it that I waited so long to do it.
You can also use something like SplitView to divide the screen into two or more virtual monitors. Then you can maximize windows within the split areas.
I have the Web Developer Toolbar on my Firefox, and it has a “resize your monitor” button for testing websites in. I always click the 1280x960 size for my browser, so it sits sort of in the centre of my screen (which is at its maximum resolution, 1680x1050).
I have two 1920x1200s at work, and really enjoy the freedom of being able to put anything wherever I feel like it. I wouldn’t say I have tricks to maximizing their efficiency, but I do enjoy being able to put my windows wherever they work… it works great for comparing multiple Word documents, which is the main reason I need so much screen space. I like the taskbar between the screens, vertical, instead of at the bottom of the screen.
I keep most windows about a foot wide, unless I’m looking at two pages in a single document, in which case I’ll usually maximize them.
Pretty much the same here - just not quite so many pixels. The primary monitor in front of me is 1680x1050, and the one off to the side is 1280x1024.
I don’t let anything run maximized as if it was DOS application from 1986. There is a reason it’s called Windows… My partner runs everything full-screen in the mistaken belief that it makes the text larger. Drives me nuts to use his machine.
The main efficiency boost we’re getting from multiple monitors is that we’re printing less. Instead of flipping back and forth from a document to another application, I can fling the document over to the other screen and work in the main application.
I don’t think I’d ever be able to get used to having the taskbar on the left or right side. From 1995-2003 I had it on the top side though. I’m using Vista x64 and I can’t even FIND a place to grip the taskbar to drag it to another corner (and yes, I unlocked it).
I sort of do this as well, but through a second monitor. So I have the widescreen on its side as the primary and a standard 17" on the left for anything else I want to do.
My partner runs everything full-screen in the mistaken belief that it makes the text larger. Drives me nuts to use his machine.