So my brother is getting a new setup and is giving me one of his monitors (Merry Christmas to me!) I've been turking with one screen on my laptop since day one and I have no idea how I'll utilize a second screen effectively. (Once I figure out how to get the split screen thing to work, which I've also never done) For those of you that have dual monitors, how do ya'll tend to use them, if you don't mind me asking?
It makes it a lot easier to multitask for sure. There are lots of options for how to optimize things and you'll find what works best for you, and it'll likely change depending on what you're doing. Having extra space for more things to look at, or "I have so much going on, let me spread out a bit!" is really helpful.
I like to work on things on my laptop with Panda Crazy on the left side in its own window because the screen is right there. I'll keep my HIT Finder on the left window of the second monitor so I can easily glance at it. Usually my dashboard and this forum are on the right side of the second monitor but sometimes I'll leave it on the right side of my laptop. As I'm doing stuff, I'll usually just clutter various program windows on the laptop, but it's nice to be able to move something to the second monitor if I want to get it out of the way for a minute.
And sometimes I just watch shows on the second monitor so I don't have to keep moving the window around while working.
It definitely makes going back to one screen feel more cramped.
Split screen is super easy in windows, "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Display\Screen Resolution" lets you choose to extend it (rather than duplicate) if it doesn't automatically do it. I'm not sure about other OS's but it's probably in a similar place, and should be easy to find on google if it's not.