- Joined
- Jan 28, 2018
For me the progress from multi-screen setups went inverse really. I started off with a second screen in the 90s, usually accompanied by a second computer because that was actually practical for me. (Hardware/Software support for multiscreen setups also wasn't exactly great) In the zeros, the third screen found its way in as systems actually managed to handle two screens well enough. Then with LCDs, screens started getting oblong and also bigger and bigger, a trend I found highly ugly and irritating. Pixel density also seemed to get worse, not better, having me to revert to bitmap fonts some when in the early 10s because many vector fonts were a blurry mess without tons of tricks like subpixel aliasing and strong hinting with any appreciative kind of text density on the screen on your average consumer monitor.
Somewhere around that time the third monitor disappeared, then a few years later the second. I hated my entire FoV being taken up by huge monitors and it gave me head- and neck-aches personally. I experimented *a lot* with workflows and ergonomics while never really being happy and eventually ended up with a small 2560x1600 13.3" monitor this year. The kind you'd find in smaller notebooks - and that's it. Windowmanager is ratpoison which is often mistakenly labeled as a tiling window manager (you can but I don't use it as such as that doesn't make a whole lot of sense on 13.3") which is really more of a GNU screen for X windows, or an X window multiplexer. No window decorations, no taskbar, every program is "fullscreen". Switching is via key combinations similar to gnu screen. As the name implies, a mouse isn't needed at all.
Ratpoison has a feature where you can have small text messages pop up on the screen which are pretty customizable, I use that for various simple notifications, even ended up writing a small queue daemon so text messages don't overlap/cancel each other and everyone gets fair time on the screen that system is also aware when I'm not at the computer (saves the messaging for when I return) and also "knows" at which computer I'm at to display messages. (I have the same setup on my notebook) For interactive stuff that requires feedback I use dmenu, and a lot of my system stuff and scripts are quite dialog-driven via that. Since the nature of my program usage is very deterministic (the current focused program is the one I am definitively looking at, as it is the only one visible) these dmenu dialogs can take me to other windows interactively if something requires my direct attention and also take me back to what I was doing, without it being too jarring or interrupting for my workflow. It's a little bit akin to the Amiga Workbench "screen" concept, if not quite. I love this setup, it is very clean and minimal and it's great at eliminating distractions. Also this screen has almost three times the pixel density of my last screen, very good backlight (easier to do in a physically small screen) and is brilliant for any kind of text. I haven't had a headache in a while. Next upgrade is eink (there are 40 fps eink monitors now) or oled.
Somewhere around that time the third monitor disappeared, then a few years later the second. I hated my entire FoV being taken up by huge monitors and it gave me head- and neck-aches personally. I experimented *a lot* with workflows and ergonomics while never really being happy and eventually ended up with a small 2560x1600 13.3" monitor this year. The kind you'd find in smaller notebooks - and that's it. Windowmanager is ratpoison which is often mistakenly labeled as a tiling window manager (you can but I don't use it as such as that doesn't make a whole lot of sense on 13.3") which is really more of a GNU screen for X windows, or an X window multiplexer. No window decorations, no taskbar, every program is "fullscreen". Switching is via key combinations similar to gnu screen. As the name implies, a mouse isn't needed at all.
Ratpoison has a feature where you can have small text messages pop up on the screen which are pretty customizable, I use that for various simple notifications, even ended up writing a small queue daemon so text messages don't overlap/cancel each other and everyone gets fair time on the screen that system is also aware when I'm not at the computer (saves the messaging for when I return) and also "knows" at which computer I'm at to display messages. (I have the same setup on my notebook) For interactive stuff that requires feedback I use dmenu, and a lot of my system stuff and scripts are quite dialog-driven via that. Since the nature of my program usage is very deterministic (the current focused program is the one I am definitively looking at, as it is the only one visible) these dmenu dialogs can take me to other windows interactively if something requires my direct attention and also take me back to what I was doing, without it being too jarring or interrupting for my workflow. It's a little bit akin to the Amiga Workbench "screen" concept, if not quite. I love this setup, it is very clean and minimal and it's great at eliminating distractions. Also this screen has almost three times the pixel density of my last screen, very good backlight (easier to do in a physically small screen) and is brilliant for any kind of text. I haven't had a headache in a while. Next upgrade is eink (there are 40 fps eink monitors now) or oled.
slack, I easily use up three monitors. The other desktop has email, personal comms and media + another browser window.
