One justification reason for going down the dual screen route a while back was that it was going to make me more productive. Overall I have to say that this has proved to be the case.
One area where I have not been so productive is in settling on the size of windows that I use. An initial attraction of the larger screen(s) – 23″ ACD’s – was that I would be able to have full screen, really large windows for applications such as Browsers, email, iTunes etc. Initially this was the way I set things up, but I started to get the feeling that I was losing out on the real benefits of dual/larger screens. The reason that I went dual screen rather than one 30″ screen was that I believed that with a 30″ I would just ‘grow into’ the space it provided and in effect end up with my ‘usual’ amount of screens open, just in bigger windows.
Until recently this was the case with the 2 x 23″ ACD’s. I then started using the 17″ MacBook Pro a lot more, and out of habit used small windows for all my applications to maximise the real estate. With the obvious exception of not having a second screen to drag windows to, I found that on a ‘per inch’ basis I was viewing more data on the 17″ screen then on two 23″ screens – which can’t be right can it?
I have gone back to a lot of smaller windows across the two screens ,with the exception of Photoshop, Lightroom, Soundbooth, and (hate to say this) Excel – as I do a lot of large spreadsheet work pretty regularly.
Now for the somewhat sad bit! Whenever I see a movie or TV show that is technology based and I see all the screens with small, neat, easy to read windows I go ‘I want that’
As you can see I am a long way from achieving that goal …….
My question is ……… are you a big window or small window person?
It depends on the app. I find that I’m using spaces more and more, even on dual screens. Certain screens are setup for certain tasks. But no application ever takes up the whole screen, except for lightroom, and photoshop. Safari is always setup to a screen size that fits most web pages. Chats and email have specific sizes to be able to view all the info I need. Itunes is usually hidden away, since once the music/podcast are playing I don’t need it to take up space on the desktop. So big or small, they are usually in major disarray, but in such spots that are easily found.
Ah Spaces – have been drafting a post on that for a while now so wont comment!!!!
As you know I am working on a very large window solution for all my communication apps:
Combined with Spaces (if I decide to stick with it – it has one major flaw as far as I am concerned) I hope to be able to get the organisation and productivity that I aim for.
I guess it’s relative/proportional to your screen. If I’m working on a project I like to use the whole screen of a very small MacBook screen. So I guess it’s big but if you think about it’s actually small?
Cofused??
Thanks goodness for Spaces. I tend to have email, ichat, etc. etc. fairly big almost full screen in each space.