I have a VGA display attached to my MacBook Air via a mini port to VGA adapter. The Mac detects the VGA, but all I get on the VGA is the Mohave background and a greyed-out menu bar at the top--no windows, other menus, or cursor. Nice decoration, but how do I get the default display onto the VGA so I can use it? Gather Windows didn't do it; I'm probably missing or misinterpreting something in the Help.
The Mac treats 2 displays like one huge monitor. If you open System preferences and select the Displays tab you'll see 2 rectangles next to each other. The rectangle with the white bar is your iMac's display. You can use your cursor to move the orientation to your liking. Since my Mac is to the right of my 2nd display, I moved the rectangle representing the Mac to the right of the other rectangle, for example. With that orientation settled, you can open a window on one monitor and then drag it to the other one.
The white bar represents the menubar - it also represents the default display. You can move it to the VGA display if you like so that it becomes the default display.
The Mac treats 2 displays like one huge monitor. If you open System preferences and select the Displays tab you'll see 2 rectangles next to each other. The rectangle with the white bar is your iMac's display. You can use your cursor to move the orientation to your liking. Since my Mac is to the right of my 2nd display, I moved the rectangle representing the Mac to the right of the other rectangle, for example. With that orientation settled, you can open a window on one monitor and then drag it to the other one.
The white bar represents the menubar - it also represents the default display. You can move it to the VGA display if you like so that it becomes the default display.
Thanks for the reply. Last week, I was getting the two icons in the System Preferences Display window, but not today; I'm getting just the built-in display, even after shutting down, remaking the connections, and starting up as if the system is not seeing the VGA at all.
Moving the Mac Display to a VGA Display
