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

If you have a dual monitor set-up and Lion and you have tried the fullscreen setting, then you know what is wrong.


Might as well not even have the second monitor...Lion completely takes over both monitors and only allows you to have one app up. Pointless, and no way to stop it. (A preference setting in System Preferences under Displays would have been the right thing to do).


I know I don't have to use fullscreen, but it was nice to be able to view a Quicktime movie fullscreen on one monitor while continuing to work on the other. Lion makes that impossible.


Anyone know of a work-around or fix for the fullscreen/dual monitor fiasco?


Thanks for all help.

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 2:07 PM

Reply
816 replies

Oct 29, 2012 5:05 PM in response to donebylee

Looks like Jony Ive has just been promoted to HI design company wide:


http://9to5mac.com/2012/10/29/svp-of-ios-software-scott-forstall-leaving-apple-n ext-year/


"Additionally, Jony Ive will “provide leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) across the company in addition to his role as the leader of Industrial Design.” That’s an interesting new role for the Industrial Design guru, who will probably have more of a hand in iOS now."


If there's any hope of getting this issue fixed, it will come from him -- I would say that anyone who is really ticked off by this should send him an email with a link to this thread and their thoughts. As one of the best designers in the world, he would have to at least see things from our viewpoint and consider implementing a workaround.

Nov 5, 2012 2:05 PM in response to pygy

pygy wrote:


There's a message on this topic on Jony Ive's facebook profile.


Like it if you want him to notice.

Not that I was able to find, but that gave me the idea to post a rather long message to him on his page. With luck, whomever the serf is that reads his page for him will take notice. Just posted a few minutes ago and using my real name (Trane Francks), so it'll be easy to find and like as you see fit, folks.

Dec 4, 2012 3:22 PM in response to donebylee

This is insane, what a f*** up by Apple man they really dropped the ball.


And so I finally upgrade my MBP to Lion and am greeted with this problem everytime I hook up my TV to watch a movie.


It always fullscreens to the laptop screen and not my TV.


Is this some backwards sneaky little ploy to get me to puchase Apple TV or something?


Jokes aside, they broke OS X Spaces and they broke fullscreen with dual monitor... You know what I think I want my old Snow Leopard back.


Maybe I switch away from using Quick Time but seriously Apple sort this out.

Dec 4, 2012 3:31 PM in response to Debrecini

Debrecini wrote:


And so I finally upgrade my MBP to Lion and am greeted with this problem everytime I hook up my TV to watch a movie.


It always fullscreens to the laptop screen and not my TV.


The only suitable workaround I've found for software forcing itself to the primary display is to toggle from extended-desktop mode to mirroring for the duration of that task (pressing the F7 key on my mid-2007 MacBook). This works for movies or games where one is single-tasking, but it's still an epic fail for those who wish to do more than one thing at a time.


Maybe they'll address the issue in OS X 10.9, but I'm not holding my breath.

Dec 19, 2012 8:15 AM in response to Jason Gallagher3

Jason Gallagher3 wrote:


Some hope?


http://www.cultofmac.com/196267/apple-is-absolutely-aware-fullscreen-mac-apps-on -multiple-monitors-leaves-much-to-be-desired/


Maybee direct your request to Mac Software Engineering Craig Federigh


Wow... that is truly a shining glimmer of hope. Lion introduced soo many problems for me... Fixing multiple desktops for full screen apps would actually be the problem I need least addressed. TotalSpaces fixes a lot of the problems.


But this one is problem the most annoying thing at the moment.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1481746

Any threads/ideas known to address that one? ^

Jan 8, 2013 6:33 PM in response to Jerry Dalton1

Just in case enough hasn't been said about full screen mode, I've had ML for about 4 months now on a brand new MBPr and I have to say in the 6 years I've been using Apple products its the worst OS I've ever seen them produce. I'm sick to death of these companies coming out with Phone features on a desktop. THEY ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT GUYS!!! Stop trying to give me gestures when I'm using a mouse and keyboard. They work great on small screen only devices but if I have a better way to deal with it already then why change things for the sake of change?


Microsoft for years played this game and look where it got them. Focus your energy on making the OS faster, slicker, easier to work with and stop trying to make it a phone for goodness sake. Full screen mode is stupid! We could already maximize windows and we still could do other things, full screen mode takes away all control and throws us to a screen for a single app and removes half of our functionality we use to have. This is not a step up but a step backwards.


I'm not sure what is happening to the OS people but at the moment Linux, Mac and Windows seem to be competing to see who can screw up a desktop the fastest. I'd say Microsoft is winning but the other two are very close behind!!


Very disappointed,


G

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

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