For most of my life , I ’ve been a single CRT screen kind of guy cable . I spend the immense majority of the last several days working from a 13 - inch MacBook . When I did finally add a 27 - column inch Cinema Display to the mixture , it took at least two weeks before I was unforced to in conclusion stop piling all my windows into roughly the same amount of place as that MacBook screen .
The author ’s workspace , which explain how he gets so tan while mould indoors .
Unsurprisingly , I adjusted . iTunes migrate to the MacBook screen , while I arranged my most frequently used apps — Mail , Safari , Adium , my Campfire node — on the larger exhibit . No longer did it take replicate invocation of Command - Tab every time I need to check something in my Web web web browser while composing an clause in BBEdit . I grew fond of my multiple displays , embraced their power to help me do my work more expeditiously .
The author’s workspace, which explains how he gets so tan while working indoors.
And then came Lion . Lion , with its promiscuous - to - swipe spaces and full - projection screen mode apps . Lion , with its manifest “ Who the what now ? ” approaching to multiple monitoring machine .
Multiple monitor have long seemed like an afterthought to Apple . The original Mac — and most of the models that immediately followed it — had establish - in screens . So did arguably Apple ’s most famous modelling , the iMac . Most of the estimator the company sells these days are laptop with their own built - in display . And now , with the focus on iOS devices like the iPad and the iPhone , the company seems to see secondary presentation as rudimentary organ , lumping their user in the same class as those power users longingly waiting for an update to the Mac Pro .
On the one hand , I think Apple is look forward and seeing a future in which we ’re more likely to use multiple devices with single exhibit than single devices with multiple presentation ; on the other , the ship’s company still betray apretty darn attractive displaythat seems like it was separated at giving birth from the MacBook Air .
This much linen usually deserves its own closet.
While I may be a comparatively recent convert to the dual - show life-style , they say that there are none more avid . And though Lion ’s embrace of multiple monitoring machine is paltry , Apple has an chance to reinvigorate the capacity withMountain Lion , if only it choose to do so .
Lion’s dirty linen
What ’s so bad about Lion ’s multiple monitor support ? In some way it ’s no better or worse than premature incarnations of OS X. You have a choice to mirror the screen or extend the background , and the exemption to take which monitor lizard has the menu bar , and how the two monitors are arranged . mere enough .
But there ’s a real problem with Lion and multiple monitor lizard , and its name is full - screen musical mode . Full - screen mode ’s goal is to dispatch distraction , let you focus on a undivided app at a time . And , son does it exercise — in all probability a bit too well , in some cases .
On my 11 - inch MacBook Air , full - screen manner is actually middling ready to hand . I can put Mail , or BusyCal , or iTunes into full - screen , not only avoiding clutter up up the pocket-sized projection screen with a bevy of overlapping window , but also making them easily accessible with a dim-witted swipe on the trackpad . There are disadvantages , too , of course — try composing a message in Mail ’s full - screen modality while refer to another Mail message , and you ’ll see what I imply — but the feature film has its public utility company .
But move the same feature to my screen background , a 21.5 - inch iMac hooked up to that 27 - inch display , and full - screen mode for most apps becomes laughable . Not only because a huge screen like the 27 - inch can easily expose multiple full - sized windows with little problem , but also because if you full - screen an app on one display , this is what you see , by default .
I sure hope you like that linen paper approach pattern that Apple seems to be using everywhere now , because if you ’re using multiple monitor , you ’re going to get an eyeful of it .
Now , if the app has multiple window , you’re able to size a 2nd window to fit on your secondary display , but in many ways that seems antithetical to Apple ’s goal of a exclusive - windowpane , iOS - esque experience in full - blind . Again , Mail — which really behaves other than in full - screen mode — would seem to be Apple ’s gold standard for a full - covert app , and you ’ll have a concentrated time making use of that secondary showing with it .
But what if you could full - screen Mailonyour lowly showing , while your primary showing was still being used for other apps ? There might be a public utility to that . Or , to take a somewhat more common use case , what if you want to full - screen a telecasting in QuickTime Player on your lower-ranking showing while working on your principal show ? Give it a effort under Lion , and you ’ll terminate up with a main screen full of linen .
Be fruitful and multiply
yield , there are challenge here . If you ’re extending a background over two display , Apple do by it all as the same space . But full - screen apps arealsotreated as their own spaces , which makes it wily if you desire to put an app in full - covert modality while still leaving other window available in that space . Still , I ’m convinced Apple could find a way to meld these feeler to allow the option of having a full - covert app available on one display while other windows or apps useable on a secondary display .
The current prevue of Mountain Lion do n’t seem to make any improvement to the situation for those of us with multiple video display ; the feature is basically unchanged . And Apple recently put up a support text file , helpfully entitled“OS X Lion : Full - screenland apps seem on the display containing the menu bar,”for which learn : “ It ’s not a bug , it ’s a feature ! ” no matter , it ’s a shame : The paltry accompaniment for multiple displays remains one of my few quiddity with the commonwealth of Lion . But thus far , Apple seems to have other Pisces the Fishes to electrocute with its next update to the Mac operating organization .
I do n’t think , as many seem to , that Apple is iOS - ifying OS X , and that some day we ’ll all be running elephantine , full - screenland apps on our devices and loving itor else . The ship’s company ’s smart enough to realize that it ’s downright utile to be capable to look up to one windowpane while doing something in another — say , writing in a text file while looking at relevant detail on a webpage . Or if you ’re a graphic graphic designer , a Web couturier , an creative person , a cinema editor program , a programmer . The leaning could probably go on .
What it come down to , I think , is that Apple sometimes generate overenthusiastic about an estimation , without thinking through all of the repercussions , and such is the case with this cognitive operation of bring iOS and OS X into a more perfect union .
In fact , as long as the ship’s company is looking to unify elements of Io and OS X , it could do worse than figuring out a way to bring in the estimate of multiple apps on the screen to its peregrine operating system . That ’d for sure be one way to make wreak on the iPad even more attractive .
[ you’re able to have older associate editor in chief Dan Moren ’s 2nd presentation when you prise it from his cold , deadened hand . Well , peradventure notdead . ]
