Change display order between second and third display

Some time ago, I have found the answer to this problem.

It should be easy to do from inside FCP X, but unfortunately it requires a little trick in System Preferences...

Here is the recipe:

1) Put FCP X, in single display mode, in the display you want to use as your main display.

2) Open System Preferences->Displays, click on "Arrangement" (I think that is what is called, I don't currently have two displays connected so I can't check),

3) Drag the visual representation of the Menu Bar to the display that you want to use as "second" display in FCP X.

4) Go back to FCP X and choose to put the viewers on second display.

In case someone else needs this information, here it is . . .

If you have triple or more monitors, you can turn on secondary display but it cannot be moved. You CAN however move the location of your main display by grabbing the top of the window (just like you would any window in mac).

Use desktop arrangement and put the menu bar in the monitor you DON'T want to use. Then go back to final cut pro. It will have put your main window in the monitor you don't want, but that's fine, because you can move that one. The secondary monitor will no longer be in the third monitor.

I'm not sure there's an easier way to say that. It's not nearly as complicated as I'm making it sound.

Here's another explanation of the same thing.

Say you have three monitors and you want to use 1 and 2. But every time you select secondary monitor it puts it in 3. So tell it to put the main window in number three (by moving the menu bar in system prefs/monitors/arrangement), therefore forcing your secondary screen to go to either number 1 or number 2. Then just move your main window out of three and into the other.

Another solution would be for apple to fix this. 🙂

2) Go to System Preferences > Displays and move the white bar from Dell to Samsung. Then FCPX moved to the Samsung, leaving the Dell empty.

Then appears to me that you need only add an intermediate step to make this work...

2b) Move the FCP X window back to the Dell :-)

Note: I don't have three monitors, but I did try it once and it worked. Of course, when you do "Show Events on second display" (which it seems you want, not viewers) have to have the main FCP X window in the right place - otherwise it is obvious that it won't work - when you do this, the timeline stays on whichever display it was!

Another way to put this: in my original instructions, do step 1 after steps 2 and 3:

(Start with FCP in single window mode, in whichever display, it does not matter)

2) 1) Open System Preferences->Displays, click on "Arrangement"

3) 2) Drag the visual representation of the Menu Bar to the display that you want to use as "second" display in FCP X.

1) Move FCP X's single window to the display you want to use as your main display.

4) In FCP X, choose to put the viewers events on second display.

Hi there. I have 4 monitors. Your solution didn't work for me. Tried twice.

Second time around, the events are in a window behind the main window.

Any other ideas?

Cheers

I am sorry, for the moment I have no other tricks up my sleeve...

I don't have a setup with 4 monitors to try this (well, not unless I carry two of them to another floor, which I can't right now), but I would expect it to work as it does with three. It is regrettable that we don't have a finer control over which display goes with what. I am going to give feedback on this, and I suggest that you and other people with multiple monitors do the same.

Final Cut Pro->Provide Final Cut Pro Feedback...

It could be as simple as Show Events on <name of display>

OK, thanks for the notes. You would think that with all the push on Thunderbolt that they would allow this to be addressed.

Cheers

I finally figured this one out.

This actually seems to be related to which thunderbolt port each of the displays are plugged into. Even though I don't recall the ports being physically numbered on the back of my Mac Pro, they seem to have a priority order to them.

My situation was that I have a main apple 30" display and two smaller displays, but when choosing in FCPX to put the viewer on the "second display", the viewer would show up on the right display, when I really wanted it to on the display to my left. I suppose I could have physically swapped the displays, but instead, on a hunch, I left the main display connected, but unplugged the other two displays from their thunderbolt ports and swapped which port they were in, then went back to FCP X and this time, when I set the viewer to second display, sure enough... voila! It was now just how I wanted it.

By the way, I did wonder if the correction might have actually been due to the sequence that I plugged the displays in, but I tried unplugging them again and plugging them back in the same ports but in the opposite sequence, and that didn't change anything, so it does appear to just be the physical port order that they are in that matters here.

Anyway, hope that helps!

- Reagan

I'm on a Mac Pro 2008 so I'll move around some ports. That might be the solution.

Cheers

Just switched DVI ports and that did the trick. Seems of my 2 video cards, both items have to be on the same card. It's the faster card of the two.

Nicely done. Port preference.

Cheers