MacOS Ventura how to show dock bar on all monitors?

—George wrote:

Hi Luis Sequeira1,

So, looks like it is not possible to display Dock bar in multiple monitors, when the Dock positioned at the left side and displays are one above other?!

AFAICT, no, it's not possible. You can Apple know of your wishes by using feedback:

https://www.apple.com/feedback

When I click the menu bar on the display I want and then press Cmd+Space and start an application from the Spotlight, the application is opened on the monitor it was previously closed. How to change this behaviour. I want application to be opened on the display where I clicked the menu bar?

Did you actually QUIT the application, or did you just close its window(s)?

Is the application in question set to "None", when you control-click the Dock icon, Options?

As for displaying the Dock on ALL monitors go to Mission Control in System Preferences and check the box for "Displays have separate Spaces" then restart your system. You should now see the Dock as well as have access to the top menu on all your displays.

This worked. Thanks Steve.

Two bits:

1. I know it means when I disconnect my mac from external display I now have half of my content 'hidden' in a space (swipe with 4 fingers) is not great, but I'll take it (work time trumps personal time)
2. In Sonoma (14.2.1) mission control is now at the bottom of Desktop&Dock

Where is the Dock positioned? Right, Left or Bottom? The Dock only appears on different displays when positioned at the bottom - which I imagine is not a very convenient place for your display arrangement.

My advice is to rely less on the Dock.

Make sure that the application is not set to open in a specific desktop. Click and hold the Dock icon and from Options choose None.

Click the menu bar on the display you want. Use the keyboard: Command-Space to open Spotlight and type the first few letters and press enter.

For example Command-Space Saf enter

and you have Safari starting on the selected display. No mouse traveling to the Dock necessary.

Sorry, I forgot to mention a detail: these options only appear when there is more than one Space (a.k.a. Desktop) on at least one of the displays. Confusing, I know…

You can open Mission Control, add a second Desktop to one of your displays, and then these options appear. You can set them to None and then close the extra Desktop.

I am not sure what the issue with number 2 is. Command-Shift-3 takes a screenshot of the active Desktop in all displays. Do you want it to only take the screen you are in? I don't recall this being mentioned until now.

Anyway, it is only a matter of discarding the one you don't want, isn't it?

Regarding item 3: I don't use Launchpad, so I don't really know what is supposed to happen in this case.

Launchpad is an application itself, but kind of particular, so I don't know if the whole Spaces thing applies to it.

I now tested a few non-Apple applications to see how they are affected.

My take away is that they do not all behave equally; furthermore, it seems to be related to how some applications open an empty window by default, or whether they had open windows the last time they were quit, and are set to reopen them. Any of the two cases can "undermine" the intention to open them in a different display.

A case in point: I opened Smultron 8 (a text editor), and it was only opening in the very last display it had been used; but once I closed the "Untitled" window that had been automatically opened, the next time I was able to get it to open in the desired display.

Zoom, on the other hand, since there are no windows to reuse from the previous session, always opens in the active desktop.

The same thing happened with the other applications I tried: HandBrake, VLC, TeXShop.

They all open where I "tell them to", unless there were open windows from the previous session - these windows open where they were. This is why you are seeing applications like Visual Studio Code always open in the previously used display.