Multiple monitor support

[Lt Major Burns]

desktop manager. (version tracker) what behavior does that have with two monitors? it repeats the menu for each desktop that is active, and is set up to have different sets of apps active on different desktops. would it work on dual mon.? i have no idea....

[fryke]

texanpenguin said: "The menubar should merely move to whichever screen the active document window is on." - and i SHIVER at the thought of it. I would start SCREAMING. I mean: Say you have two or three monitors. The system - with your thought - would become utterly unpredictable. That can't be "it". Let's keep it simple (first rule of interface design, I guess...) and predictable.

Apple has a menubar that's global. And I guess that's why it's on _one_ display, too. It's the master menubar on the master display. I don't think they'd move from that.

[Viro]

Why would such a system be unpredictable? I see a window on a monitor, and lo and behold the menubar is on that monitor... I should add that this behaviour should only occur when the _main_ window of the application is on a particular monitor. Thus palettes, etc. shouldn't have a menubar anyway.

[chornbe]

I agree that could get dizzying. If you can glue the menubar for a given application on top of the application, that would be ok. But the system-wide menu bar hopping around like that would be a problem.

I'm biased to the "menu in app" design that other GUIs offer, personally. I think it just makes more sense. And no, I don't just mean Windows All the Unix/Linux offerings use the same model.

[Pengu]

pfft. that leads to inconsistency, and a lack of things like Clock, menu extras, global menus (stuff in the apple menu) etc. the day Apple start taking interface hints from MS or the *NIX world, i'll marry a pig.

[limeyx]

Originally Posted by Viro

I don't get that. How does using the other monitor as secondary remove the need for a menubar? That's precisely what I'm doing right now and I need the menubar on the secondary monitor.

Right, it's obviously broken as it stands for a large number of use-cases.
Controlling an application on one display from menus on another is just unnatural. Like someone else said, if the menus were *inside* the application (where they belong anyway), then this is a non-issue.

So far there seems to be no solution

[TommyWillB]

Originally Posted by Viro

I wish Apple would make the menubar of apps appear on the the same monitor where the application window is displayed. As it is, if I have an application window on the secondary monitor, the menubar still appears on the first monitor. Highly annoying. Practically defeats the purpose of a second monitor.

This isn't Windows where all application elements are in a single window. On the Mac you can have many windows for a single application. Which one of those would be the basis for deciding which monitor to use?

It'd be easier to just start learning the key-commands for things and wean yourself of the mouse all together.

[TommyWillB]

Originally Posted by chornbe

http://www.jeffntom.com/misc/public/...ndow_menus.gif

I know you're just trying to push butons here, but NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO Application windows should NOT have menus within them!!!!