Author Topic: Widescreen Monitor for PC - I'm not sure I get it  (Read 1065 times)

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Offline Orbert

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Widescreen Monitor for PC - I'm not sure I get it
« on: April 24, 2013, 02:16:16 PM »
My display at work is a 1280 x 1024 flat screen, pretty basic these days, although six years ago when I got it, it was considered pretty damned spiffy.  Recently, one of the contractors from our group moved on, basically leaving his nice widescreen monitor up for grabs.  (It's technically against company policy, but a widely accepted practice to scavenge equipment from recently vacated cubicles.  Whatever the new occupant might need will be ordered, and they'll get all new stuff anyway.)

I'm not sure of the dimensions in pixels, but physically it's the same height as mine, but "widescreen".  I figured hey, I will treat myself to an upgrade.  Bigger is always better, right?  So last night after most people had left, I grabbed his monitor, swapped mine out, and rebooted.  After messing with the resolution and a few other settings, I got things looking like they did before, but now with lots of extra screen real estate.  Yay!

Except, not so yay.  I know part of the whole point of Windows is that you can have various windows open at once, overlapping in various combinations.  But I generally only work on one thing at a time anyway.  When I'm programming, I have my SAS environment open and it's maximized.  When I check my email, I switch to Outlook, which is also maximized.  Whatever I'm looking at is maximized; I don't see any point in viewing less than everything I can, since it's the only thing I'm looking at.

But now everything is shifted over to the left because the display is so wide.  There's no point in expanding things to screen width, because it would just make everything huge, and I'd actually have fewer visible lines on screen.  Emails, Word documents, and my all-important SAS files are all way to the left.  So I go through and resize all my windows to use the full height but make them all the width I'm used to, centered, leaving pillars on each side (similar to viewing SD television on an HD display).

I get that all set up, and realize that I'm now exactly where I was before.  My windows are the same size as they were before; I have a nice widescreen monitor, but I'm not using any of that extra space anyway.  And not only that, but I even have to go through some extra hassle to get it this way.  I switched the monitors back.

What am I missing?  If I did work where I need two windows open side-by-side, I could see the advantage.  If I was doing graphic design or something where there's a clear advantage to viewing more pixels, I could see that.  But working with text, in an environment limited to 80 columns because of historical reasons, I honestly don't see any advantage, and maybe even a few disadvantages.

Suggestions?  Enlightmentment?  Anyone?

Offline Chino

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Re: Widescreen Monitor for PC - I'm not sure I get it
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2013, 02:25:43 PM »
I split screen my monitor all the time. The wider the better for me. It's also bitching for movies.

Offline rumborak

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Re: Widescreen Monitor for PC - I'm not sure I get it
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2013, 02:28:42 PM »
I don't know anything about SAS, but both Eclipse and Visual Studio have a lot of "border windows" that encroach on your source code real estate. Wide screen monitors = win in those scenarios.
So, for me as a programmer of Java and C/C++ I totally appreciate those form factors.
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Offline Chino

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Re: Widescreen Monitor for PC - I'm not sure I get it
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2013, 02:31:01 PM »
I don't know anything about SAS, but both Eclipse and Visual Studio have a lot of "border windows" that encroach on your source code real estate. Wide screen monitors = win in those scenarios.
So, for me as a programmer of Java and C/C++ I totally appreciate those form factors.

Same goes for Visual Basic and Photoshop.

Offline rumborak

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Re: Widescreen Monitor for PC - I'm not sure I get it
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2013, 02:33:15 PM »
I'm always amazed when people tell me they program in Visual Basic. Seems so ... anachronistic.
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Offline Chino

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Re: Widescreen Monitor for PC - I'm not sure I get it
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2013, 02:38:02 PM »
I'm always amazed when people tell me they program in Visual Basic. Seems so ... anachronistic.

Electives for school.   :lol

I actually really enjoy coding in it.

Offline El Barto

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Re: Widescreen Monitor for PC - I'm not sure I get it
« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2013, 02:45:08 PM »
You should do what I do when new monitors come available--add, not replace.

The usefulness of the extra width depends on the programs you use. Anything that's paned is generally better. Anything with detachable toolbars, as well.
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Offline Dublagent66

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Re: Widescreen Monitor for PC - I'm not sure I get it
« Reply #7 on: April 24, 2013, 03:19:39 PM »
If it's more real estate you're looking for, I would suggest two monitors like Barto said.  I remember when two monitors was practically unheard of, now it's pretty much standard issue where I work.  Don't even know how I got along with only one.
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Offline Orbert

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Re: Widescreen Monitor for PC - I'm not sure I get it
« Reply #8 on: April 24, 2013, 04:14:42 PM »
Maybe I'm just too old-school.  I've been programming nearly 30 years, starting with FORTRAN on an 80-column dumb terminal, and to this day I still code in 80-column lines.  The logs wrap at 80, and trying to read a log where some idiot has coded in 132 is a pain in the ass.  In my coding environment, there are no palettes or toolbars taking up screen space.  If there were, sure, I'd be glad to have them on screen and handy while not interfering with my main programming window.  But I only have the one window, so there doesn't seem to be any advantage to a wider screen.

I wasn't really looking to increase the screen real estate; I guess I just was being greedy.  Here's a cool wide-screen monitor, I'll grab it and use it instead of my old 1280 x 1024.  But because whatever window I'm working in is maxxed and on top anyway, I didn't gain anything.  Same number of lines, but all shifted to the left because the screen's so wide.  Didn't work out.

Yeah, if I watched movies, I could see the advantage.  I'm not sure how long I'd be able to get away with that at work, though.

Offline PowerSlave

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Re: Widescreen Monitor for PC - I'm not sure I get it
« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2013, 11:27:33 PM »
I went to college for autocad design and do a lot of stuff in 3dsmax and modeling in general at home as a hobby. Wide screen is the only way to go when it comes to that sort of thing. I just recently started a new job doing photo editing with photoshop and the monitor that I have at work is a "normal" old style monitor and I absolutely hate it. I enjoy doing the job, though. I guess that it's just a preference thing.
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