Asklemmy

What is a rainbow computer?

I use multiple monitors for audio production. My use case is a bit weird since I code Csound and use a DAW, which is unconventional. It's great for having the DAW up on the 4k, and some code or docs or both on the 1080p, 144Hz. If you didn't guess from the mixture of resolutions and frame rates, I've got gaming covered as well.

Truthfully, the 4k probably has the real estate to do all that on its own, but it was the last monitor I bought and why not use the other? I'm too lazy to figure out a setup to hook up the other 1080s I have lying around. (And don't need the space in any case)

Teacher here. I have my laptop (16”) and an ultra wide (34”) on my desk, and a projector behind me. I keep my email, attendance, and calendar on the laptop screen.

On the ultra wide, I keep my grade books and various spreadsheets, since more width makes it easier to see more data, and I have my daily agendas/lesson plans. Again, more width makes it easier to see the whole week at once. I keep that fixed to 2/3rds width of the screen, and the other side is reserved for Spotify at like 1/6th width

The projector is used to show the daily agenda, videos, instructions, etc. I very frequently screencast my iPad to the projector, so I can fill out worksheets on it with the class and they can see me write or circle things.

I can’t even fathom having any less screen real estate now. I gotta be able to see it all at once!

I have 4. My main and second are 46" each, the 3rd. is a 27" in normal/landscape, and the 4th is a 27" in portrait. The main is in front of me, the 2nd. is to the right and angled toward me, the 3rd. faces me at 90 degrees from the main, and the 4th. Is mounted above the 3rd. I used them originally for streaming and all of the windows I had open to monitor everything at the time as well as the game I was playing. Now I find them useful for working on projects, watching videos or movies while I play a game, and working on multiple spreadsheets at the same time. The one in portrait is especially helpful when I'm looking at a season's worth of a scheduling spreadsheet.

I have three identical monitors in a row. Primarily I use the center one, for productive work and gaming, but often I'll have something up on the second screen that I'm working with as well. It's more rare that I actively use the third one, but some tasks have more than two or three windows and now I can see all of them full size at once.

I've occasionally used them as a single ultra wide screen for gaming, but since then I've gotten an hmd for VR and that is better.

I'm an engineer (a non-IT engineer) and have 4. There is so much ensuring consistency between drawings and documents. I'd like 5 (including the inbuilt one) but graphics card on my high performance company laptop says no.

At least one for file explorer, then other three could be pdf editor, or word, or excel, or internet browser.

I regularly have 4 drawings open, plus another reference, plus windows explorer for file management.

It's never enough. I could totally do with more than 4 screens, I'm already squeezing multiple drawings onto one monitor.

I have two monitors but I do all my work on one the other is completely separate. Plays YouTube all day so that I have background noise to work with.

Backend dev. I have an ultrawide (like two monitors in one).

Sometimes I need to test the full stack and need a lot (8+) terminals. I try to tile them all on a separate virtual desktop.

Most commonly though, I center my main application and can have two smaller, peripheral applications, one on each side.

When doing full stack, I need a browser, IDE and two terminals, tiled to give more space for the browser.

Independent IT Contractor: I have a 4-wide 1080p screen setup. I keep Slack/Teams on one screen, the semicircle setup means I can only really look at 3 at the same time. I upgraded from 3 screens because I kept having to juggle windows around while troubleshooting someone's webserver.

Also used this setup when I was really heavy into FFXIV- I like having wikis/alerts open and visible, so one screen for that, the game, discord, and then the last one was just for youtube/netflix.

I always have used 2. I use multiple desktops really hard (for a long time in Linux and MacOS, and with third party Windows stuff till they finally caught up) and find it more convenient for compartmentalizing than multiple monitors.

The only times I want to (and occasionally do) go more than 2 is watching F1 with data viewing and so many camera angles up

Designer/animator, Mac, either two-screen app setup/workflow (ie editing, 3D, etc) or an easy way to have 2 related things going (ie, brief + job, reference + project, etc).

Three monitors here. I'm an engineer so left monitor is usually reference material (drawings, spec sheets, formulae, etc), center is usually my primary workspace (email, python, CAD, etc) and right is music, communications, and calendar for the next goddamned meeting.

Left and center are 24" 1080p, right is 15" laptop. I'm thinking of upgrading the next time the office gets tech money.

I used to use my 3rd monitor for company email and chat programs so they would stay out of the way of my actual work.

At home I have the game I'm playing on one screen and Discord and a web browser on the other so I can communicate and look things up without needing to alt tab.

For work I generally have references, teams, email, and other stuff on other screens and a main one that I'm working on. Like querying a database while testing, editing screenshots for docs and issues, having reference docs open, etc. I don't do development itself, but do a lot of requirements documentation, testing, and project management stuff on web apps. Sometimes it is just two screens, but sometimes I have the laptop open too and put teams and email on it so I don't have to bring it forward if something comes up.

One additional vertical monitor for e-mail, papers or documentation is great.

I do fiber optic tech support

Left monitor is for account software (includes customer info, ticket manager, etc)

Middle monitor is email, browser (most of our management tools are browser based), and putty

Right monitor is ms teams, notepads++, and a softphone app

I have 2 at work. Sometimes I just have our ticket software on one and Firefox on another both full screen. When works crunching I might have multiple PDF manuals open on one and PDF schematics on another and could use a 3rd for a browser window to search for old similar problems in our daily reports. I'm able to work best when I can keep 1 screen dedicated to what I'm working on and the others for information gathering.

At home I typically just have 1 screen for gaming. I might set my laptop up on the desk if I want to browse the web or chat while playing.

For work, it's usually IDE on the right (my larger screen) and a live build of the thing I'm working with on the left (a laptop screen). Though it varies a lot throughout the day. Primary screen gets the app that needs most scrutiny, small screen gets auxilliary things like passive communication apps or reference materials.

For home use, where I have two monitors of equal size, it's usually Discord on one screen and a web browser on the other. Comms on the left and active task on the right.

I don't see a use case in my workflow for a third screen, especially not one that is a weird size or is in portrait orientation. But if one was simply bestowed upon me, I'm sure I'd find something to do with it sooner or later. There was a time where I though two monitors was overrated, I'm sure I can adapt my opinion again for 3+.

Two monitors one computer? Bah! Why not two monitors two computers!

One main monitor connected to my Windows machine, and a second monitor next to it connected to my work Mac. Using Synergy, one mouse and keyboard plugged into Windows controls both machines.

Then, add a Framework laptop propped up on the left running Linux, also controlled with Synergy. Three monitors, three computers! Now when people ask what OS I run it's an easy answer: all of them at the same time lol

Chat/docs/IDE across three monitors. Throw in a terminal and music player too tiled on the two vertical monitors.

I have a central monitor in landscape orientation which is where my IDE lives. Then a monitor on the left in portrait, which has the bottom quarter or so dedicated to work chat, music controls, and the browser developer window, then the rest of it is a web browser for documentation. On the right is my laptop screen, which is used for more documentation and watching TV shows while I work

Code, editors, terminal, and most browser tabs on the right..

Calendar, Slack, some more browser windows on the left, sometimes some debugging tools.

Third smaller screen off to the side for media if I want to throw on something in the background.

Less necessary now that I'm using a tiling wm, but previously it allows me to have IDE, program I'm working on, and a browser for googling without having to switch context to go between them

Plus if more is needed for whatever use case (terminal window for running application, teams, etc) I can split screen too

With a tiling wm at work I have teams/outlook on right, primary application (terminal/tmux, IDE, browser etc) center and googling browser on the left, and then a virtual desktop for each project I'm working on at the home if I need to switch for whatever reason

• Left (horizontal) - communicators, btop, Spotify.
• Middle (horizontal) - browser with GitLab, terminals and editors, main development in general.
• Right (vertical) - browser for googling and docs, terminals for tests / logs / whatever I want to see at the same time as the editor, Obsidian for notes.

Anything less than that will completely ruin my workflow. I'm even trying to come up with a feasible way to fit a fourth one.

• Left (wide screen): Teams and Jira
• Center (Ultra wide screen): IDE, file browser and other main stuff
• Right (portrait): Terminal and ocational documents

Two screens and a laptop screen, could find use for more. I find myself shuffling things around depending on what I need, but most commonly I have the left screen split between notepad++ on one side for any notes keeping, and either documentation I'm reading, documentation I'm writing, a browser I'm using, or something such. Whenever I need to compare text files, notepad++ gets to take the whole screen.

On the middle screen I usually have the remote desktop or VM I'm working on at the time.

Right (laptop screen) is usually reserved for Outlook and Teams.

• Left (vertical) - Notesnook (or whichever knowledge management system I'm on at that particular moment), Signal, and Slack all tiled so I can see them all together.
• Middle (horizontal) - IDE.
• Right (vertical) - Browser.

This works well, but I'd enjoy another monitor for Spotify or, more likely, so I could make all the terminal, debugger, run, database, etc from my IDE full-blown windows on the fourth monitor.

I have three. Left for email, right for Teams, middle for whatever I'm working on. Then I cover up Teams and Email (in that order) when I need to see multiple things at once (e.g., a second instance of VS or SSMS or a browser).

Virtual desktops, multi monitor and tmux allow me to go full ADHD, everything open at once, multiple projects on different desktops with like 5 windows open

Bonus points when I've got multiple terminals connected to the same tmux session because I forgot I already had it on another desktop or wanted it split with something else

My home setup is an ultrawide and a 1080p monitor. I find with tiling and virtual desktops more than that is surplus to requirement (even the 1080p monitor usually just has a browser open)

On a Mac the Expose features such as ability to customize your screen rather than have to deal with fixed real estate plus additional virtual desktops are also highly notable in that regard. There are definitely advantages of having additional physical screens over the window management approach, but also vice versa too. I would say just try it, but note that it does take quite a bit of getting used to, as too in a sense does multiple monitors especially if trying to use different windows from the same app - browser - on different ones.

Also if cost is no factor at all, instead of multiple monitors you can have large nice screen + laptop, for the ultimate portability. There too there are advantages and disadvantages both - e.g. while working on one the other will fall asleep, if the nice screen is a separate computer rather than mere monitor.

To someone wondering what to try: something will appeal to you - listen to your inner voice and let it guide you! If you are wrong, you still learn from the experience;-).

After having tried most standard configurations at various jobs and home (never a third monitor though, I prefer the ease and simplicity of a single large monitor. Everything is a few keystrokes away but I tend not to need to see all things at the same time. Sometimes, extremely rarely, it does seem too constraining, but not enough to justify the additional cost of a second monitor (not just money but setup and my attention time), and this works well enough for me. Others will similarly do what works best for them in turn.

Not a computer person; just a worker with an office. I keep my laptop vertical to the right with my email/calendar usually open. I use a monitor left of this - it's big enough that I can comfortably have 2-3 windows on it - so i can have 4 things open at a time. When i have a zoom, meet, or WebEx, that takes one; second is whatever I'm supposed to report in that meeting; third and fourth are what I'm actually working on. My biggest problem is that the vertical laptop has the camera and in some video meeting apps I'm in portrait while everyone else is landscape.

Music production. Left: tracking and editing window. Right: mixer and plug-ins