Multiple monitor support

Viro

Viro

Registered
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.
 
I think the only solution to this would be to mirror the menu bar itself onto both displays. Might be possible for the display drivers to do this, who knows.

However I don't see the problem since most who use 2 displays are using 1 as their primary and the other is secondary so it doesnt need a menubar.
 
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.
 
I posed this questoin on another forum and it was suggested that this could possibly be a task for a haxie or similar.

Viro - when I said secondary I was refereing to those who use it literally as a place to put pallettes and lesser used items, but where they still use the main display for the primary windows they are working in... where the menubar is at top.
 
True. If you use it that way, you don't really need a second menubar. However, if you use it the way Viro describes, then you need it because it's more like you've got two different computers.

The only possible work-around I can think of is learning keyboard shortcuts.
 
I see how it would benefit people using applications that had loads of floating palettes. However, not everyone works with Photoshop :).

Still, hopefully Apple will come up with the option to enable this feature.
 
I think we can agree that the current way Apple does it fits the first type of users, i.e. they have a clear _main_ and a clear _secondary_ monitor. I usually have the palettes and stuff on the secondary, but I also have Mail.app's window "over there", so I see when Mail arrives (and into which box it automatically gets filtered). I also put other stuff I want in my view there, like the iChat contact list.

If you are of the second type, like Viro, you want to use one application on one and another on the other monitor. Right now, you have the choice of learning keyboard-combos (I STRONGLY suggest to use keyboard-combos as much as humanly possible, anyway!) or to wisely choose which apps are on the first, which on the second monitor, depending on their use of the menubar.

I have to admit I'd despise the idea of having the menubar a second time on the second monitor.
 
i've used dual monitors for years and have never needed, or even thought of, having a menu bar on my second screen. you can only have one app active at a time anyway, so haveing two different apps on two different screens seems pointless, but then i don't know what it is you are doing. my second monitor has been used for pallets for graphic apps, ichat and messenger, diag boxes ( ie, copy, empty trash, stuffit, diskcopy, safari downloads, and itunes.) and never have needed a second menu bar.
as fryke said, it would bug the heck out of me if it was there.
 
You know I've never thought of it as an inconvenience until right now.

Gee, thanks, Viro, now it's going to aggravate me EVERY time :p
 
I will... ;)
Totally agree with you; there should be a menubar (or in any case a dock) on the second screen. I want to see which apps are open on my second screen, I want their functions at the top of my second screen. Logical as that.
 
*snicker*

Gee, you get that for free in Windows systems with multi-monitor support because the menu bar exists in the application... where I believe it should be, by the way. As much as I like my apple, I still think the menu bar belongs in the app.

$.02
 
Then post it in Apple's Mac OSX Feedback.

I found the Apple feedback page (for most everything) here. if enough people provide feedback, Apple probably will respond. Also, if you are the third party developer, then I smell a shareware third party application brewing here.
 
I remember back in the OS9 days that you could drag the menubar to the second monitor in the monitors preference panel. Is this still possible in OSX, or does this simply re-assign the secondary monitor as the main monitor? I definitly like Viro's idea about having two menubars, though. What about two docks?
 
you can do that, that's not the problem. he wants it on both at the same time but not mirroring the displays.
 
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....
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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