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Comment by Aaargh20318 | Hacker News Reader

Aaargh20318

It’s an OS problem for not handling monitors being disconnected and reconnected properly.

What is stupid is having half your windows unreachable because they are on a monitor that is turned off. How does that help anyone?

Imagine how annoying it would be on a laptop? I use my laptop in a meeting, and have a few windows open on its screen, then I arrive at my desk and plug in my 2 external monitors and keep my laptop lid closed. Imagine if the windows on the laptop display stayed there, they would be unreachable and would have to manually move them to my other screens every time I moved from a meeting to my desk. Same for the other way around, I disconnect from my monitors and take my laptop to a meeting, and then I can’t access any of the dozens of windows I had open on my 2 external monitors.

That would be an absolutely brain dead way of working.

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>Imagine how annoying it would be on a laptop?

>That would be an absolutely brain dead way of working.

For starters: the experience I want on my laptop is not the same as the experience I want on my desktop. I have two monitors at home, sometimes I like to turn off the wing-monitor when I am watching a movie on the center screen. (To avoid distraction, and also minimize glare, etc.) That doesn't mean I want those windows rearranged: that's probably going to interfere w/ the movie that is playing, fuck up my desktop wallpapers, icons, window sizes, etc. The whole point of turning off the monitor is to hide those distractions.

Also not all window managers suck as badly as Mac OS and Windows. By default I have odd-numbered virtual desktops go to the left montior, and even-numbered virtual desktops go to the right monitor. If I want to move a viewport to another monitor, I renumber it accordingly, and all the windows move to that monitor: complete w/ their proportional positions and sizes.

The idea that _a device hotplug event_ would change how my virtual desktops are laid out is so absurd to me that I switched operating systems to avoid the default Windows behavior. So maybe consider that paradigms and workflows other than "a docked laptop" exist before calling people braindead?

> that's probably going to interfere w/ the movie that is playing, fuck up my desktop wallpapers, icons, window sizes, etc

That sounds like a Windows problem.

You are talking about physical monitor unplugging, while others are talking about monitor power off, but still plugged in.

I agree that when monitor is physically removed, the windows should go back.

But if it is just powered off but still plugged in? I say windows should stay there, just like HDMI did. For example I sometimes turn off monitors for less distractions during regular conversations.. or to save power before leaving.. in this case windows jumping all over the screen are the last thing I want.

Makes sense to move the windows if you close a laptop lid, but not if you turn off a monitor. You can't disconnect the laptop screen, but you can easily disconnect the monitor.

I have a cheap laptop that doesn't understand a turned-off monitor as unusable, and it's actually way nicer that way.

Why is it nicer? What is the use case for having unreachable windows?

Not having your windows get messed up when you turn the monitor on/off, which is especially relevant for TVs and projectors. On the flip side, what's the use case for connecting to a powered-off monitor and not using it? If I don't want to use a monitor, I won't connect it.

So that I don't see them while they still stay where they are! For example, preparing for a slide-show is one example: move PowerPoint to the second screen where it'd stay even if there is actually no second screen.

But my windows aren't getting messed up, once I turn the monitor back on it restores the previous state.

And the use case is simple: I have 2 monitors hooked up to my machine but I don't always need 2 monitors. I have a 34" 5k2k ultrawide and a 27" 4k in portrait mode. When I'm coding or using my computer for an extended amount of time I turn both on, but when I just want to quickly write an e-mail I only turn on the main monitor. I mostly use the ultrawide and have the portrait monitor to the side to dump documentation and other materials I need for quick reference on. Right now it's 29ºC in my room and I don't want to turn on more equipment than needed.

This seems like a very specific situation, and you could disconnect the second monitor for it.

Not sure about the reliability of window restoration. It's at least better in the latest macOS than in older versions.

Dive under my desk and unplug the monitor from the Thunderbolt 4 hub or just press the power button.

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