Dual monitors and fullscreen fiasco, is there a work around?

Hi, KB.

The issue is complex and annoyingly worthy of the 31 pages of replies in the thread.

For your example of using Lion's native fullscreen mode, the issue of losing the VM while swiping is that Lion treats a fullscreen application as its own virtual desktop. And as pointed out in the thread, it makes more sense to view Lion's fullscreen mode as actually being "single application mode". So, yeah, swiping away from your fullscreen VM will have it go bye-bye in Apple's API implementation.

As you've discovered, the only way to get it to work as you want is to use Parallel's own implementation. It's frustrating that Apple hobbled their implementation to the point that it took away functionality instead of adding to it. I've played with Lion just enough to discover that I'm really not a fan. Not only do I think the dual-monitor support with fullscreen apps is a failure of epic proportion, the iOSification of OS X leaves a bad taste in my mouth. UI design optimized for small, single-display, touchscreen interaction simply cannot scale to a multiple-screen, extended-display virtual desktop environment that utilizes pointing devices. As such, I'm sticking with Snow Leopard until such time as support for security patches reach end-of-life. After that, I'll reassess my options.

Cheers.

It would seem Apple's approach is to leave it up to the developers. Personally I think that is wrong headed. For those of us who think that is the case, I recommend we focus our feedback not at the Apple site but rather on the Press. We need to e-mail the reporters at WSJ, CNET, MACWORLD, etc... about this issue. Apple Inc may not care about the individual computer user's opinon but darn sure they care about publicity.

Hear ye, hear ye -- from this point onward, "Full Screen Mode" in OS X 10.7 "Lion" from this day forth shall be known as "Single Application Mode"

I don't have a problem with full screen apps getting their own spaces, I think that's actually a good idea -- what I do have a problem with is spaces being linked between multiple displays.

The simplest fix that would pretty much satisfy everyone is smoke monster's idea -- which is to have an option to unlink spaces when using multiple monitors -- ****, keep it enabled by default and let people turn it off. This would take about 5 minutes to code and would pretty much make everyone happy. I don't understand why Apple doesn't do this.

Also plenty of news sites have covered this issue, and some of the more zealous sites have even touted this as a "feature" -- due to certain apps having draggable modal windowsthat you can drag to the canvas'd out displays...which tbh is pretty dumb -- they could do that before, it's just that now instead of looking at your desktop behind the modal windows, you get to look at a canvas pattern and see no other apps running.

I don't think unlinking spaces between multimonitors would break the modal functionality -- it would just make it so it worked like it did before in 10.6 and prev.

The other solution is what app developers like parallels and vlc have already done -- is have an option to use a different implementation of an actual full screen mode that bypasses apple's built in single application mode and just lets the app run in full screen without blanking out the other monitors. The problem of course is that none of the native apps made by apple have this option, and also it makes more work for developers of 3rd party apps.

I'm not a programmer or anything, but is there any way to code an app that "listens" to other apps being put into FS mode and disables the standard apple FS mode when the button / mode is called, and uses another FS mode instead (like how VLC and Parallels do)?

Either that or finding a way to edit the mission control app so it unlinks monitors...which seems a lot harder than option 1...I don't know, I can barely code a visual basic app :| Any coders here for OS X wanna take a shot at answering though?

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Here's an interesting "bug" exploit.

http://geetduggal.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/reclaiming-your-second-monitor-in-os- x-lion/

That indicates to me that the black fabric pattern is just a normal window being drawn at the top, when you enter that transition mode, you can then add windows to the window order, and put them in front of that black fabric display.

Now... could one go into the corresponding application's package contents and simply remove the canvas texture, or replace it with a transparent image? This is likely to be the Dock.app. Would you then be able to click on the items, or would they just become visible?

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OK -- so we know it's possible at least. Can someone code an app that makes this behavior permanent and automated? I'm willing to throw down some cash into the pot for someone to accomplish this task.

Duh.

Personally, I'm not a fan of unlinking Spaces. Whether it be multiple monitors under KDE on Linux, VirtuaDesktop on Tiger or Spaces on Snow Leopard, the concept of "virtual extended desktop" is common and it's something that pretty much anybody can understand. And if you simply make a fullscreen app GO fullscreen on a particular monitor and leave everything else alone, then the existing behaviour of Spaces enabling apps to populate all virtual desktops is utterly perfect. So, no offense to SmokeMonster, but it's not a solution that would make me a happy camper. I'd rather that Apple's API have hooks that enable PER APP settings that define whether the canvas of other displays are blanked during fullscreen use.

"I don't think unlinking spaces between multimonitors would break the modal functionality -- it would just make it so it worked like it did before in 10.6 and prev."

Spaces are absolutely linked in Snow Leopard, as they should be (IMO). The trick is that in Spaces, I can configure which desktop (or all) the app lives, either windowed or fullscreen. So, I think people are confusing the issue of blanking with the issue of where the app lives. And, frankly, it's because of Lion treating fullscreen apps as being on their own virtual desktop that is the problem. Unlinking is a broken solution to a broken problem. Make fullscreen apps simply go fullscreen on the desktop on which fullscreen was called and leave it at that. This is what 3rd-party apps have always done and it works very well.

As long as Apple tries to make us adopt an iPhone/iPad approach on the desktop, we're pooched.

But your two (or more) monitors are in physically two (or more) different spaces in the real world -- why should they be in the same virtual space?

What I mean by unlinking is, not having that "lolcanvas" icon with the app name as an actual space on the top of Mission Control on the monitor that's blanked out -- the app running in single app mode should only be on the monitor it's actually running on.

NiqueXyZ wrote:

But your two (or more) monitors are in physically two (or more) different spaces in the real world -- why should they be in the same virtual space?

Because I have them mounted next to each other and use them as one huge monitor, often dragging windows to spread over more than one at a time! They better be linked.

Now, if I have my Macbook Air hooked to a large monitor and am using both, I would then not want them linked. Therefore, it must be an option. Therefore, there are complications and the user has to understand them. Therefore, Apple will probably not allow this since they just want to keep everything simple - whether or not it works right.

Well, it's an **extended** desktop paradigm. You can drag windows from one to the other, so obviously they have a connection. If you uncouple them completely, then good luck with dragging from monitor to monitor.

Your "lolcanvas" is a feature not of linked spaces, but of making fullscreen apps have their own virtual desktop. This is exactly what is the problem. If you have a 3rd-party app installed that does its own fullscreen implementation, I'm pretty sure you'll find that it, e.g., Parallels or VLC, stay put on the desktop upon which fullscreen was called. This makes the extended desktop paradigm functional and easily understood. Apple creates a new desktop space for a fullscreen app? It's just daft and shows that iOS devs were the main architects of the design specification. It's an iPad mentality run amok on OS X.

unfrostedpoptart wrote:

Now, if I have my Macbook Air hooked to a large monitor and am using both, I would then not want them linked. Therefore, it must be an option. Therefore, there are complications and the user has to understand them. Therefore, Apple will probably not allow this since they just want to keep everything simple - whether or not it works right.

I have a 23" monitor off to the left and behind my 13" MacBook. I drag stuff between them daily. I absolutely want them linked. I don't understand why somebody wouldn't want them linked. That said, if the virtual desktop environment is coded such that applications can easily populate particular monitors, having them linked is not an issue. And, as stated earlier, if it's a matter of not losing whatever it is on your external monitor while you're changing desktops on your laptop's display, then your Options in the Dock for that app makes it happen as easy as pie.

The problem is Apple choosing to make fullscreen apps have their own virtual desktop combined with forcing secondary displays to be blanked. The solution is for Apple to make apps go fullscreen on the monitor (and same virtual desktop) on which fullscreen was called. Make blanking user-definable on a per-app basis. End of problem.

Trane Francks wrote:

unfrostedpoptart wrote:

Now, if I have my Macbook Air hooked to a large monitor and am using both, I would then not want them linked. Therefore, it must be an option. Therefore, there are complications and the user has to understand them. Therefore, Apple will probably not allow this since they just want to keep everything simple - whether or not it works right.

I have a 23" monitor off to the left and behind my 13" MacBook. I drag stuff between them daily. I absolutely want them linked. I don't understand why somebody wouldn't want them linked.

Dragging windows from my 11" MBA to my 27" monitor and back almost never makes senses because of the size difference in windows. Also, when I'm running like this, I'm usually using the MBA for personal stuff like email/messages/web while using the big monitor for work stuff, so I want to change spaces on them independently.

Trane, your simple request is just simply flawed.

For one thing, my solution offers the ability to unlink spaces. Which means you can link them again, should you be someone who did function with linked spaces.

Make fullscreen apps simply go fullscreen on the desktop on which fullscreen was called and leave it at that.

if you wanted to do what you are saying, then you simply can stretch the window to the size of your one monitor.

The issue, as I understand it, is not only that the other screen gets blanked but there is a loss of functionality when you have two monitors.

I hope my clarrification shows that your reasoning for being here is not the same as mine or others and that may be why you do not agree with the methods that I drew up. But I think that Spaces should have functioned like the way I described, since day one. If Fullscreen, and everything that comes with it is for power users, then why do I feel so unimpowered by it?

I simply have to ignore it until there is a fix. I played around with being able to flip through my apps in fullscreen mode, which is really fun, but not at the expense of my second monitor. The idea that both monitors move when I'm flipping through Desktops, is also disorienting. Splitting (or unlinking) the function of Mission Control and Fullscreen Apps between monitors will shut me up about this issue/loss of functionality.

-MiB

I admit to getting bogged down trying to understand exactly the behviour that we're all describing, and even more bogged down trying to understand the technical solution. That said, your comment is rather apt:

The idea that both monitors move when I'm flipping through Desktops, is also disorienting.

I too found this behviour disorienting, and rather confusing.

I had the fous (cursor) on one screen, swipped and was suprised that both screens moved. Totally unexpected. This is not intuitive, which is to say I expected only the screen I was on to move in response to the 4-finger swipe gesture. I think this expectation is quite natural and THAT's the kind of thing I would hope savvy interface designers would take into account - to make things feel natural.

I'm finding myself dissappointed that Apple appears to be unresponsive to this matter.

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This means that support moderators have deleted bits of the post!

My posts are now *disappearing wholesale*. For mentioning certain 3rd party add-ons and their developers?! Oh *dear*.