Ben Halpern

Posted on Jul 9, 2017

How do you arrange your screens/multiple desktops?

#discuss

Where is the editor, the console, the browser, team chat apps, etc.? Do you have a consistent routine, or do you have flexibility here?

Latest comments (46)

Alex Escalante • Oct 16 '17

I have the latest iMac 5k 27". I just have two desktops, one for developing and other for everything else: mail, etc…

27" at 5k is a lot of space. Visible at all times:

Two iTerm terminals: one for my front-end, another one for my backend
Sublime, plenty of space!
Spotify
Skype

Kalle Ott • Oct 15 '17

two externals plus laptop,

on the left: first external screen with IDE and Code (main screen)
in the center: second external screen with browser/debugger (research screen)
on the right: laptop with slack/email/other distracting stuff (communication screen)

Filip Vidak • Oct 15 '17

Don't have constant routine but what I need to work on or use the most is on my laptop's screen (15.6")which is right in front of me. Something that aids me, be it a browser tabs with what I need, some other piece of code or anything else is on 2nd monitor (21") which is on the left of laptop. Everything else which might be useful is on the right monitor (17").
It highly depends on what and in what I'm working. Different setup for VS, Ecplise, Android Studio, casual situations...

Angie the Fairytale • Sep 18 '17

Akar • Sep 17 '17

I use Ubuntu as my operating system, two virtual desktops, the left one I use for the browser, and the right one I use for the coding related stuff, (VSCode, Multiple terminals, etc...).

I got used to the switching, and it's really good in my opinion.

Edwin Klesman • Sep 17 '17

MBP pro 2017 with touchbar. One desktop is for social media mail slack etc. One is my coding desktop (chrome debugging, Xamarin in VS for Mac and mobile simulators) one my browsing one and one for everything else. When coding this setup runs on mbp and second display.

Sivaraj Ambat • Sep 17 '17

Prefer transparent windows to multiple monitors or virtual desktops. e.g., It's easy to watch a tutorial and try out the code in the foreground. Likewise to have documentation/code reference open while coding.

twitter.com/sivarajTweets/status/7...

Adrian B.G. • Sep 17 '17

1 display for communication (chat, email, git, asana etc)
1 display for code, source files, resources, active workspace, CLI etc
1 display for the result (unity3d preview, test results, or the website if is a website etc with hot push or auto refresh, monitoring if debugging servers, etc)

Everything raised on the eye level, when I'm standing straight.

alex • Sep 17 '17

Always Mac on the right with slack, then the big monitor with Vscode left, Terminal bottom right and postman/safari top right ( 4K gives you a lot of space 😂 )

Victor Perez • Sep 17 '17

Lenovo laptop, always with the lid closed.
A single 21" (at work) or 25" (at home) screen.
Linux Mint desktop, so, one taskbar and really thin.
I have a 3x3 workspace grid. I normally organize as following:
1|2|3
4|5|6
7|8|9

Browser, opened for working related stuff.
Empty
Empty.
IDE (s).
Text editors (for repos that do not use an IDE). Also terminals, local or remote.
Empty.
Communication: slack, email, etc.
Browser with personal stuff (if any).

I've used two displays for some time (laptop + monitor), used to use the laptop's one for terminals.
Stopped this habit since displays tend to have different resolutions and your eyes have to adopt, bend you back, etc. Not a good idea. Although, many people have really good, long and strong arguments about it.
Also, laptop keyboards are not as comfortable for coding as a normal one, so, having the laptop in my hands was neither an option.

Over the time, one gets really fast changing workspaces, and is better over Alt+Tab, since you always know for certain where's that program you're looking for.

Also, once people in your team know the thing about the workspaces, pairing is really easy. The keyboard is easy to share/move around, the place where people look at is "in a mid point" and we stay focused in one position.

Winterkewl • Sep 17 '17

I'm a unity developer so I have a 4K monitor horizontal in the center with two 24" monitors vertical on either side of the main. On the right I have visual studio and on the left I have chrome.

The only annoying thing is when I switch to photoshop, audition, handbrake, etc because I don't like having to switch back and forth on the 4K.

Also, pro tip if you do use 4K monitor on windows with scaling turned to 150% (so the text is actually readable) some unity windows will actually disappear into the void if you maximize a torn off one. Switching back to 100% scaling brings them back but ughhh took way to long to figure that out one day. :)

Mara Sophie Grosch (LittleFox) • Sep 17 '17

[               ]
[               ]
[ 24" 1920x1080 ]
[               ] [ laptop ]
                  [ 1080p  ]
                  [ 14"    ]

Using i3, I only have windows on one screen.

I have a single workspace on my laptop screen, mostly used for Mattermost or reference things (it should look like this).

Most of the time I work on the external monitor, with workspace 2 being my browser and workspace 3 containing whatever I need to code (vim, terminal, ..). On workspace 10 I have my communications (Thunderbird, Gajim).