Basically I just don’t think people know how to use multiple monitors. Seldom is it useful for me to have a single app span multiple monitors; it’s just too much space to look through. In my experience what multiple monitors are good for is displaying reference material while you are working on your main data on your main screen. In fact I often have multiple sources of data I want to see at the same time like two servers’ performance live and my log app in the middle.

Have you encountered this, and what could the possible fixes be, I’ve heard that the Spore Mac release is actually just running Wine internally and the same maybe w/ BF 2142. Could that be the root of the problem?

Thanks in advance,
Paeregrine

I love my mac, but I wish it could handle multiple monitor multi tasking at least as well as windows does. Serious, each screen needs to have a menu bar for each application currently active in that screen. This is just crazy that this is not the case.

It would also be nice to be able to disable spaces on certain monitors. so for instance I would like my external monitor to stay put, while I change spaces on the laptop. That would be nice.

While some here have complained that your monitors would make you move physically, they miss the point totally. When working on monitor four, you have need of things that only are available on the menu. The menu being on the far away monitor is the problem. If it weren’t there, you wouldn’t have to move ether the mouse or your chair. What these people are missing is that you can and do use the other monitors to work separately from the work being done on the monitor on the other side. This is not always the case but it is frequently.

In my case, I have an iMac 24″ connected to a 22″ external monitor that is on a swing arm. The setup is in my den and I sit at a big overstuffed chair with the iMac to my left on an end table. The swing arm monitor is used to pull the screen in front of me so I can look at it without having to twist my neck. A solution could be to make it my primary monitor but the problem with that is that I frequently disconnect the swing arm monitor and put it away. This is true when we have guests. Another use is we will watch a movie or hulu show on the swing arm monitor because I can easily swing it around for easy viewing by everyone. Both of these things would be better with a menu on the monitor in use rather than on a distant one.

Like other posts, I came here looking for a solution to my frustration and regret that I am stuck with this problem. I also came here to see what kind of idiot would make such a blatantly bold and ridiculous statement as to say a XP is better than OS X. I stand corrected. After reading the article I completely agree with the author’s position. In addition, if this problem were present on a Windoze environment, I submit someone would have written a utility to work around it. The work around community seems to be much stronger on the Windoze side.

Having said all that, I still love my Mac and will not give up on it. I may have to get some software development tools to create a workable solution on my own.

Having the menu be part of the window (or at least follow the window) definitely makes more sense in the multi-monitor scenario. I would also argue that in a single monitor scenario it’s still better to have the menu bar be part of the window. I think that Fitts’ rule is stupid: when a user needs to access the menu on a Mac, he would have to travel more to the top of the screen to access it, vs much less distance on the focused window (most of the time focused window is not full screen); it’s no brainer to me which one is more efficent.

I feel UI-wise Windows trumps Mac OS in general. The UI widgets in Mac OS don’t stand out as much (tabs, buttons, etc, like in Safari). It’s harder to tell that they are there. I never really understood why Apple is famous for more intuitive UI design.

In any case, those are the Macs weak points and they come down to choosing ‘pretty’ and sometimes ’simple’ over useful. It’s getting so bad that professionals are finding Firewire disappearing and staring at reflections because Steve decided that glossy looks pretty and matte looks passe despite the fact that some of us prefer NOT to stare at our own reflections when trying to get some work done. And since Apple refuses to allow anyone else to build the hardware they do not want to build or offer (i.e. no clones), they’ve pretty much created situations where they’re telling their customers if you want a matte screen so bad, throw out all your Mac software and go buy a PC from Dell, knowing full well you’re unlikely to toss out your entire software library to make the switch (and while virtualization is allowed to make it easier to switch from Windows to Mac, Apple will not allow you to virtualize OS X to make it easier to switch back to Windows). Thus, Apple just screams of both arrogance and hypocrisy (just witness the mini-display port on the new laptops for which there is exactly ONE monitor in the entire world (by Apple of course) that it will plug into without a $99 adapter (sold only by Apple of course) so that you can use it with a $199 monitor by someone else. If Apple could tax you for the air you breathe, they probably would…unless you subscribe to iTunes and buy at least 5 songs a month and name your first born Steve. GREED is the word I’m probably looking for.

I’ve digressed WAY off course here but these are the things that are driving me NUTS about Apple, which is sad because I have despised Microsoft for SO SO long (I used to be an Amiga and C64 user once upon a time and know full well just how BAD Microsoft’s OS has been…at least until XP came along, which is almost tolerable. They then took that and threw it right down the crapper with Vista, which is utterly utterly HORRIBLE. This is where OS X comes off smelling like roses for the most part except for this multiple monitor business and an utter disdain and lack of support for (in both software and especially hardware until recently) games.

Here’s the gist of the matter. Apple could solve their multiple monitor issues as outlined above with two simple changes and they could even offer it as an option in the monitor preference pane. I see absolutely NO REASON why OS X could not simply clone the menu bar AND the dock for ALL SCREENS. It’s repetitive, yes, but it’s also FUNCTIONAL. Why should I EVER have to move over to another entire screen just to get to the dock (same goes for Windows start menu and task bar, BTW, which also only appear on one screen) to access such basic functions and tools? If it doesn’t hurt to have a dock and menu bar on a ONE monitor system, why in the world would it hurt to have them on each monitor in a two, three or even a 10 monitor system? Then each workspace would be self-contained (don’t forget the drive icons as well) and you could work wherever and whenever you want without any preconditions or issues. You select the app to start on the screen you want and/or drag it there and continue working as normal. It’s not only simple, it’s also elegant and functional. You don’t need the menu bar to “move” or appear on the working screen. Just have it there all the time on all screens just as it would be if you only had one monitor. The problem is solved, everyone is happy and Mac fanatics don’t have to make an excuse, but can go back to gloating about how great OS X is.

I would suggest this simple change to OS X to Apple, except that Apple almost never listens to its customers and instead seems to live in a perpetual state of going “lalalalalala” with their virtual fingers stuck in their ears. They do not respond or listen (and probably don’t even read) any feedback you provide. I’ve tried to get very simple bugs fixed in AppleTV now for over a year and they do not respond, reply or fix any such things. The fans probably have a good excuse for why that is, but the reality is they don’t care. Apple doesn’t offer products that customers WANT. They sell products they want to SELL. They do well when those two accidentally coincide (e.g. iPhone, iPods) and very poorly when they do not (Newton, Pippin, the TAM, etc.)

Ironically, Linux has solutions and new problems for the multiple monitor situation. On the one hand, you can have two entirely separate spaces and each monitor can have its own task bars, docks or whatever you want (Linux has endless options, which also means it lacks unified standards coherence and thus commercial software) but this system has one major drawback and that is you cannot move windows between monitors at all. On the other hand, as long as you start a program on the one you want, you don’t need to as everything you would need otherwise (menus, start bar, task bar, whatever) is already there. Or you can have something similar to Windows and OS X with the ability to move programs between screens with the added ability in KDE to ADD extra start and taskbars to the 2nd display (imagine that!) The downside is a lot of software doesn’t properly recognize the so-called Twin Mode (which on some level is just one giant screen with an artificial separation between the two) and tries to open halfway between the two screens and other such nightmares that arrive from the lack of non-unified standardization. Everyone just does whatever they want in the Linux world and so you get a lot of anarchy. And where Mac users are fanatics that often have little actual knowledge, Linux users usually have a lot of knowledge but no people skills and serious god complexes. Windows, of course, has bugs, viruses, spyware and bloat. NONE of them are ideal. Choose your own poison and don’t expect any of them to listen to anything approaching REASON.

Well said !

This is true not only re:dual monitor support (thats why i came to your article).

Mac OS is an inferior to Windows when it comes to usability in nearly every area. Before fixing dual-monitor support, Apple should write a decent mouse pointer-balistics slgorithm in OS X mouse driver (so we dont have to use 3rd party drivers to relieve strain on our wrists), completely rewrite Finder (what a joke of a file manager this thing is!), fix drivers that hang and freeze the whole os (wireless and bluetooth in leopard) – i dont remember having to restart my laptop from power button while using windows for 10 years before i switched to mac, and i do it several times a week now, fix smb networking support etc etc etc …

As for 3rd party utilities — oh yes, Mac OS and Apple are “easy to use” “everything just works”, hahahahaha, they spent nearly $500 000 000 (that’s half a billion) for advertising last 12 months — and i bought and installed plethora ot 3rd party tools just to be able to work somehow. Marketing clowns !

Oh well.

I guess I’m going to give my shiny ssd macbook air to somebody as a gift and by lenovo x30. One year of pain is enough …

Since this was posted, I have moved to 3 screens. The problem still persists. This is indeed a design issue with OS X.