Filed under: TUAW Tips
TUAW Tip: Rockin' multiple monitors with your Mac
I just recently plunked down some of my sweet, sweet blogging money for a 24 inch Dell monitor (check out my setup) which I am loving. Setting it up with my MacBook running OS X 10.4.8 was very easy (as long as you have one of these). There are a few things that did get me, which I thought I would point out for you readers out there.
Above you see the Arrangement section from the Display preference pane in System Preferences (note that each display will popup its own Display pref pane, but only the main display will have the Arrangement option). This is where you can do a few things:- Arrange the displays by dragging the boxes that represent them around
- Move the Dock and the menu bar to whichever monitor you want to use as you main monitor (as you can see I'm using the 24 incher as my main display)
- Mirror the output on each display
This is where you should first go when you have multiple monitors, however, the fun doesn't end there.
I was very excited to play some video content on my Dell 24078WFP (Dell makes a great monitor, but they still can't name things well) so I fired up Camino and went to Apple's movie trailer website to watch some trailers in HD. I clicked on one, QuickTime launched and started to play the trailer... on my MacBook's built-in display. What was going on? I made the Dell my main monitor in the Display Pref pane, why was my Mac being naughty?
Turns out the the Display Pref Pane is for OS elements, not for QuickTime, DVD Player, or iTunes. Those all follow the settings in the QuickTime Full Screen preference, as seen up above. Notice the little QuickTime logo. Just drag that logo onto which monitor you want video to be presented on whilst playing full screen. Notice the 'Display background color on all screens,' this will fill the other screen with whatever color you pick from the color picker next to the 'Full Screen' dropdown. If you leave that unchecked the other monitors will just display whatever you have on them (instead of being blacked out).
I hope this has helped some people with their multiple monitor setups, and if it hasn't I am sure I will hear about it in the comments.
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Matt Cowger said 1:37PM on 12-06-2006
How do you get to the quicktime preferences you screen shot above? Neither my version on quicktime player nor quicktime prefpane hav such a section.
Running 10.4.8 on a MacPro with dual monitors.
Reply
Baldwin said 2:06PM on 12-06-2006
If you use both monitors, what happens when you disconnect and take your MacBook on the road?
Do all the prefs return to Nornal until you reattach to the monitor?
Thank you,
-Baldiwn
Reply
Michal said 1:17PM on 12-06-2006
Good,
I'm on macbook pro + dell 20'' ;)
If someone have a good tip to have a menubar on each monitor.
Reply
GG said 2:58PM on 12-06-2006
That is one of the finest hints I've ever read on this site! I just got a new MacBook at work and I'm waiting on my Mini-DVI to DVI connector to arrive so I can connect it to my Dell LCD monitor. I've never used an external monitor with an Apple laptop, so this is all new to me.
Rock on.
Reply
glen sanford said 3:14PM on 12-06-2006
It's worth noting that multiple monitor support has been largely unchanged since Mac OS 7 or so.
Reply
Jason said 1:59PM on 12-06-2006
hey i was wondering, can you use more monitors, even though the size is different? on windows it stretched the picture out and looked awful (had a dell 24 and 19 inch CRT) it just didnt work at all, on my macpro i have dual 23's and would like a 20 to go on the side but have been paranoid about the resolution problem
Reply
sdfjkl said 1:54PM on 12-06-2006
I've got the same screen arrangement you have, but I want my dock on the left edge of the screen. However, that doesn't seem possible, the dock always goes to the left of the leftmost screen (the laptop display in this case), which is not where I want it. The best I could come up with is putting the laptop screen underneath the main screen in the arrangement panel, but that takes getting used to. Any way to keep the arrangement you have and still have the dock on the left side of the main screen?
Reply
R j L said 2:07PM on 12-06-2006
Any word on how to force Front Row onto a secondary display???
Reply
gillsans said 1:53PM on 12-06-2006
This is another reason I love OSX. About 20 minutes after I got my 1ghz TiBook, I hooked up my old 17" Micron CRT and was rocking a multi-monitor setup three minutes later. A couple of months ago I tried to do the same thing with my Boss' HP lappy and just about threw it out a window. After 30 minutes of trying to monkey with the system, I cut my losses and pulled out my PowerBook.
Reply
wharpua said 1:49PM on 12-06-2006
With my Powerbook (and now MacBook Pro) I've used a 17" CRT monitor at work for a few years, and just recently got a nice 19" LCD monitor for use at home.
A few interesting things:
- Due to the position of the monitors at each location being reversed, I have the LCD as the main screen at home, but my MBP screen as the main one at work. OS X keeps these straight because the CRT uses a VGA input (w/adaptor), and the LCD uses a DVI-D input.
- Expose functions on each screen independantly, which is nice
- the 'hardware function' of F7 automatically turns mirroring on and off
My only recent annoyance is that when Front Row is activated, it occupies your main screen, and blacks out the other screen. It'd be nice if you could have the other screen active, but it'd also be nice if Front Row was a whole lot more accesible to tweak (a fully different topic, I realize).
Reply
Mark 2000 said 2:52PM on 12-06-2006
how do you use a 24" monitor with a macbook with integrated graphics? I did just that with a 21" at 1600x1200 and it was extremely slow. The graphics processor can't handle rezs that high.
Reply
Sgt-Baker said 1:58PM on 12-06-2006
I too really wish you could tell Front Row to use a display other than the main. It is really a pain to adjust the arrangement setting every time I want to view Front Row on my HDTV.
Maybe this could be automated in some way...
Reply
Josete said 8:23PM on 12-06-2006
I use the big screen above the MacBook.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/josete/315851281/
Reply
McDreamy said 2:07PM on 12-06-2006
Uh, TUAW is about Apple. Stop supporting Dell. The Apple Displays, while obviously better looking, are higher quality, Richer in color, and actually have some design to them. Sure you got another inch. But you gave the $$ to a company that "shut down Apple and give the money back to the shareholders".
Why on earth would you use spend any money on Dell anything? Especially a display.
UHG!
Reply
Scott McNulty said 2:07PM on 12-06-2006
Jason, your Mac Pro should be able to handle two monitors of different sizes without a problem.
Reply
Scott McNulty said 2:10PM on 12-06-2006
Uh, McDreamy, just because I am the lead blogger for TUAW doesn't mean I blindly support Apple. Dell and Apple use the same panels for their LCD displays. The Dell is bigger, has more features, and costs less than Apple's offering. Remind me again why I should have went with Apple's?
Reply
Benjamin Curtis said 2:11PM on 12-06-2006
@Baldwin:
I don't know about QT, but yes, everything gets sucked back to the LCD when you disconnect the monitor, and then gets pushed back when you reconnect.
Reply
Scott McNulty said 2:11PM on 12-06-2006
Bladwin, that is one of the really cool features in OS X. These prefs only apply when the secondary monitor is connected. When I take my MacBook with me it knows that it only has one screen and the settings reflect that.
Cool, huh?
Reply
Uwe said 2:26PM on 12-06-2006
Uh, Scott, that's why:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=3faccdda23091f3c866ae97626e810ad&t=252327
(Hint: they do NOT use the same panels)
Reply
Arnold said 2:57PM on 12-06-2006
Im so glad you've got this setup Scott. I just purchased my 24 inch and was worried that It wouldnt be what it was cracked up to be.
When running processor/memory intensive apps do you experience any kind of a delay in the graphics capabilities of your macbook?
Would you recomend this setup to just about anyone?
Reply