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> neck aches I get these when I have monitors unbalanced off to one side and have my head constantly turned in that direction. On the other hand I've had 5-wi

> neck aches I get these when I have monitors unbalanced off to one side and have my head constantly turned in that direction. On the other hand I've had 5-wide monitor setups and been fine, because they were properly balanced. > Managing windows and which screens they are on is an overhead I don’t need to deal with. Conversely, constantly managing which windows are on top and visible is overhead I don't need to deal with. I use a quad 4k 29" monitor setups at minimum these days, and bought the extra monitors for workplaces that won't provide them. I want documentation, my IDE, my fullscreen game I'm debugging, etc. all visible at once without the need to constantly alt+tab around. In many cases I yearn for a 5th monitor. Debugging networked stuff, for example, might benefit from two debuggers, two fullscreen games, and then I'm already forced to split monitors if I want documentation. For desktop games I can at least split one monitor between two game windows - although that's not an option for console dev, typically, unless I want to resort to even more fiddly picture-in-picture nonsense... EDIT: I'll also print off sheet music single-sided so all pages are visible at once - and so I don't have to raise my hands off the instrument to flip pages. Same principle IMO - place stuff in a relatively stable configuration once up front, so it's not constantly interrupting my flow.

scruple 6y ago
What do you mean by "unbalanced" and "balanced" here? I'm curious because I've recently started to suspect some neck pain may be due to the way I have my two desktop monitors placed.
- edoceo 6y ago
  Prime view is center, so with two it's one middle, one left (or right). Balance meaning your head direction is equal parts left/right
  - joezydeco 6y ago
    And balance for two screens means you’re staring directly ahead at the gap between the monitors.
    - hnzix 6y ago
      The trick is to designate one screen as "main" and keep it centered to view. Then have a secondary screen for notes, email etc off to one side, generally opposite to your mouse hand.
    - edoceo 6y ago
      I'm trying with one center, horizontal, one vertical on left
- MaulingMonkey 6y ago
  I mean how my head twists and turns relative to my body/keyboard/mouse throughout the day. So, for example, a primary monitor in front and two secondary monitors to the left can be problematic for me - my main content might be front and center, but constantly looking off to the left only, and not the right, causes problems. Balance it with another monitor or two on the right - and moving content over there as well - and I won't have any issues, even if I'm still using the leftmost monitor some. But then, I can cause problems with that same setup - if for example I have only the leftmost monitor(s) connected to a Mac Mini, and end up doing a bunch of iOS/OS X dev/porting/debugging in a row. When I first had problems, I was using Synergy - I stopped doing that as much in favor of a second keyboard/mouse, or shelling into that machine (despite it being on my desk!)

scruple 6y ago

What do you mean by "unbalanced" and "balanced" here? I'm curious because I've recently started to suspect some neck pain may be due to the way I have my two desktop monitors placed.

edoceo 6y ago
Prime view is center, so with two it's one middle, one left (or right). Balance meaning your head direction is equal parts left/right
- joezydeco 6y ago
  And balance for two screens means you’re staring directly ahead at the gap between the monitors.
  - hnzix 6y ago
    The trick is to designate one screen as "main" and keep it centered to view. Then have a secondary screen for notes, email etc off to one side, generally opposite to your mouse hand.
  - edoceo 6y ago
    I'm trying with one center, horizontal, one vertical on left
MaulingMonkey 6y ago
I mean how my head twists and turns relative to my body/keyboard/mouse throughout the day. So, for example, a primary monitor in front and two secondary monitors to the left can be problematic for me - my main content might be front and center, but constantly looking off to the left only, and not the right, causes problems. Balance it with another monitor or two on the right - and moving content over there as well - and I won't have any issues, even if I'm still using the leftmost monitor some. But then, I can cause problems with that same setup - if for example I have only the leftmost monitor(s) connected to a Mac Mini, and end up doing a bunch of iOS/OS X dev/porting/debugging in a row. When I first had problems, I was using Synergy - I stopped doing that as much in favor of a second keyboard/mouse, or shelling into that machine (despite it being on my desk!)