Computer Setup

I would have to have 5, I need a centre.

Agreed. I have 4 monitors at work. the 4th being my laptop screen. I sit so the 3 actual monitors with a center one in front of me and glance at the 4th occasionally. I use it mostly for IM chats, or task manager monitoring type stuff

I have a very similar set up except one monitor is landscape

Hmm, we have 8GB RAM 1080p Core i7 laptops at work but a single tiny 17" external screen. Sucks to be me

Seriously. Especially if you game, your crosshair will be on the bezel. That would blow.

I'm considering the crazy idea that this may not be for gaming.

I firmly believe that everyone who does this either doesn't game, or doesn't stay in portrait for long (even with a center screen).

The best 24" 1920x1200's that ever existed are still in production. Yay ultrasharp!

They're still around. I bought one from newegg a few months ago. They still have over 30 models in stock of 24" 1920x1200 monitors. Just way out numbered by 1920x1080.
It just strikes me as strange that less pixels are more popular on the same size screen.

Because of the aspect ratio

1920x1080 was a compromise between wides screen of movies and standard of preinternet T.V. where each would have letter boxing but both would fit.

Buttttt 1080p is the hdtv standard.. That's why

I keep a portrait setup for gaming. I haven't gone back to landscape partially because my screens are debezeled and I wouldn't want to fool with putting them back into the cases, also because a 3x1 portrait setup is almost perfectly 16:9 after bezel compensation and web pages flow so much better in portrait.

You are a lair.
once you go to multiple monitors you cant go back.

I went back to a single monitor after a year of using 2 because my second died and I could not afford to replace it with anything good. I hate it. And the monitor I'm current using is 23"

I actually have 4 portrait monitors and play a ton of games + develop on them. The trick is to eyefinity 3 together that act as one display and then have the other one be a side display.

Brilliant
that way you don't lose your "2nd monitor"

Do they even have a 4 screen eyefinity setting?

Eyefinity goes anywhere from 2 to 6.

Not sure, I never ran a portrait set up.

If it's anything like my 4 screen setup, no. I have the 3 that come from my gpu for eyefinity and the 4th is coming from the motherboard output with Intel 4000.

I think I do recall now someone who made a rack of 6 into a screen... but they were all bevel-less and I'm not sure what resolution he was actually running.

I would also have my center monitor landscape, I "need" to watch videos.

I tried a portrait monitor for coding but did not like it. I went back.

Ditto. Didn't even last an hour.

How is that enough time to get past the factor of change?

Yeah, 1200 pixels just weren't enough for me. I even tried switching to narrower fonts

Dunno about anyone else, but I despise text wrap. I also write very dense code. Suffice to say, for me, width is more important than length.

That's what my gf says too. She's not a programmer though.

I think we caught an exception here.

Seconded. I keep a 80 soft limit, and a 160 hard limit for the most part, but most of my methods are broken up into something that fits nicely in a vertical screen space as it's wider as opposed to taller.

Check out one of the 30 inch 2560 x 1600 monitors.

Yeah, I abuse vsplits in vim, so wider the better. And I can't think of an instance where I need to see 200 lines of a function all at once, I'll page around for that.

Well, instead of a vsp just stick it in a new window on the neighboring monitor. That's kinda the point...

But then you're running 2 instances of vim...

I'm assuming that if you have a computer that can run more than one monitor, then you have enough memory to run two instances of vim.

The issue isn't about running two instances of vim causing memory issues. The issue is that you're able to copy and move around text much easier if all the files are open within the same instance.

Only if you run it through a console. gVim allows yanking to the system clipboard which allows moving text between windows easily.

I have 16G of ram. It's not about memory, it's about learning to use vim effectively. I use the same vim session for months at a time. Keeps all your buffers, macros, histories, registers, etc alive, allows you to open the same file multiple times to edit it simultaneously in different places. Eases yank/paste between files, the list goes on.

Fair point, and in that case I suppose you'd be better off with a horizontal monitor. I personally use gVim which allows you to do more between separate windows than a traditional console instance, so it's not much of an issue for me.

I'm not super familiar with vim, but emacs for example runs in client/server mode since v23 and both instances will have all of your buffers, etc. (and start-up instantly if using a SSD or fast network drives).

I don't believe Vim works that way, but a gui client like MacVim or gVIm will use the system clipboard rather than the normal Vim buffer so moving text between windows isn't a big deal. It only sucks if you try to run it in two different terminal sessions.

What are you working on that can't handle two instances of vim? A 386?!

Um no. This is language agnostic. I write C, in comparisson with python functions are typically much, much more verbose.

I see you've never met the 70 line docstring.

I honestly don't know how people can manage with out sub-pixel antialiasing. That was reason enough to turn me off.

Portrait makes sense for pretty much everything but movies and games.

I mean when coding in certain programs, it doesn't make since. A lot of programmers will try to keep the code to as few lines as possible and if you are portrait you will be view more lines and less of each line. Also, other than coding/movies/games what are you doing on your computer? Graphic Design? I would think landscape would be better as well but I don't do GD so I wouldn't be the best one to ask. Just thinking it's best to keep it in landscape since that's how most people will be view the art.

I went back to PLP from PPP because having two side by side on an L works better for me, I uses the P's for browser, terminal, unit test results, docs.

Yeah that's true, when I code though I love being able to see so far back with out scrolling and my screen is pretty wide (27 inch 1440p) so it works

This isn't 1928 and I'm not punching my code on paper. It's not uncommon to type more than 80 chars per line. Besides, one can snap windows into half screen formats to view multiple documents at once which is effectively a "portrait" style window. What benefits do you get from more up and down view in coding? Looking to see what loop you are in? Referencing variable names? I don't ever look back up at what I have typed and I surely don't need to see anything that I haven't typed.

It's still bad practice to put more than 80 chars on a line. You don't know how wide someone else's screen is going to be when they try to look at your code. 80 chars is a good guarantee that they will be able to view it without wrapping. My 13" laptop can show two windows side-by-side but each window is only about 85 chars. That 300 char line you wrote on your 28" display is just going to piss everyone off.

If your window can't even display a full tweet then that's probably your own problem.

Pretty much every style guide out there today recommends if not mandates a 80 char limit. See my edit above. If you can't conform to basic programming standards that's your own problem.

I work for Apple. No one is allowed to see my code. It's to precious and they might realize how much of it I copypasta'd

Hey, MySuperAwesomeClassFactoryThatProducesObjectsThatDoSomething have to go somewhere!

Which inevitably will cause someone else to create MySuperAwesomeClassFactoryThatProducesObjectsThatDoSomethingFactory...cause ya know, having a factory that creates factories is like...all the rage. /s

And photoshop/ illustrator/ premiere/ after effects (unless I'm ill-informed).

Really? Our eyes are side-by-side. They see in landscape, I would think portrait would only be good for reading long pages.

For browsing the Internet and coding that's exactly what I don't!

How about audio/video editing? Does anyone have insight/experience they can share?

I second this. Spanning movies across multiple portrait monitors is awesome.

Unless you don't like bezel.

If you buy LCD monitors and debezel then there is only about a 1/3" gap between the screens.

That's still not acceptable for movies and games though.

P-L-P is my preferred layout, it accommodates a lot of apps that don't work well in P

Soon as I have the money I want one of those dell 30" bad boys (or whatever the equiv is then).

I looked long and hard at them but ultimately decided it was a purchase I should've made pre-marriage and went with 3 Asus 27's for less than the one 30"

Were the three 27s 1440p?

Unfortunately 1920x1080. I wrote in another comment in here though that most connoisseurs would say the pixels would be too big and the res isn't dense enough for such a large size as a 27, but before that I had like a 21" that wasn't 1080p so I haven't been spoiled yet and so to me the 1920x1080 at 27 is awesome. I'm sure if I played on a 1440 for a day and went back to my 1080's I'd notice the difference. And I'm sure when it comes time to upgrade or one dies and I can't find a suitable replacement ill go with at least 1440's but the 1080 is quite satisfactory for me now.

Well, I'm happy that you're happy.

That was basically my logic, I bought the first two together and then added the third when I had a bit of cash.

I bought the one bc of reviews and bc of the price point comparing the prices of say 21's to say the 30. You'd expect the 27 to be upwards of the halfway between in price but it was like $150 more than the 21s. Can't beat that... That meant I now had my previous two 21's and the 27. I wanted to even it out and match resolutions and borders so I picked up two more within a few months.

My desk and work: I have 2 30-inch HP ZR30w (and then a 24-inch HP ZR24w in portrail), for PPL:

Nice monitors but whats with the glass walls?.

This is my cubicle at work. I have no say in the drone stall they put me in. We work on a cool cutting edge project that has some cool UI. They got us new two 24-inch monitors, then a few months later they gave us two 30-inch monitors. I made use of one of the 24-inch monitors and got a usb-dvi/hdmi screen extender so I can make use of the 3rd monitor. My project's budget has lots of $$, so why not?

That right there is actually my ideal monitor setup. Its like the best of every world.

I for one welcome our new P-L-P overlords.

Ah the mythical 20-30-20 with consistent ppi.

Do you happen to know the sizes of those monitors?

Most use 20/30/20, with the 20" being 4:3 1600x1200 and the 30" being 16:10 2560x1600. Since the monitors line up perfectly and have the same hight in pixels once the sides are rotated, it works really well.

The shoe really brings it all together

This is what I would ultimately like to do. What are the sizes on those?

I've been looking to buy some kind of monitor stand, but now I think I'll just copy your approach, plank of wood on blocks of wood, looks nice.

It was what I had to hand so with a saw and some wood glue..et voila.

I wasn't poking fun, I actually like the way it looks :P

I know mate, I bookmarkd you :).

Looks like a TIE fighter!

Does cacti prevent people from touching your monitor?

No but they add a bit of color, cover the cables running through the monitor stand and where a gift.

Of course, do you think me a Barbarian sir?.

What monitors are you using there? Also what stand for the two portrait ones?

Stands I made myself out of some timber that was lying around in a storage unit in my office building.

Omfg, PLP standing for Portrait Landscape Portrait ofcourse. I'm so fucking dumb.

20-30-20? Some of the 20" 30" 20" Dell setups I've seen are just mind bogglingly awesome.

I'm waiting to see if Apple really kickstarts the 4k market this fall before buying a new display rig

Dell and Asus both(are 32") have a 4k monitor coming out. Newegg has a video of the 4k Asus monitor on their youtube channel.

I like PLL. I use the left for code/reading, other two are for chrome. I really don't like web browsing in portrait unless it's text, like Wikipedia.

Debezel those monitors! If I were you I'd put one of those monitors in landscape mode on top of the other 3 portrait monitors. This will give you a center portrait screen and a center landscape screen for times when you need it.

Is that linux? Also how do you run programs and such?

Yeah that is Arch Linux with Openbox. Haha to run programs you right click on the desktop and then click the program you want!

I believe it's arch Linux, but it's hard to tell. And you run programs the same as you would on windows or Mac.

Databases or spreadsheets with many columns is my main driver for staying plp.

I dunno why, but I don't think I could bring my self to use portrait monitors. I like mine landscape too much.

I tried it... didn't last 10 minutes

I've got a fever.. and the only cure.. is more bezel.

Baby .... I....I gotta have more bezel.

Landscape... never went portrait.

I totally agree. Im running P-L right now till I can get another monitor, then will go PPP. Portrait is so nice when dealing with alot of text based work. I am studying for my CCNP and being able to see that much output for debug ip eigrp makes labs x100k easier to understand

Except when you need a landscape.

The only thing holding me back from portrait mode is the lack of cleartype, do you guys find it any less uncomfortable to read in portrait mode?

Lack of ClearType is a serious issue.

I personally haven't made the jump because of that very issue.

This is a lie. I once went portrait and back.

I am tempted... But what about the gaming? Doesn't this force you into Span/Eyefinity mode?

Not everyone on this sub is a pc gamer

Monitors need to have smaller margins.

This. I'm just curious if it really interferes.

I got 2 monitors. One vertical one horizontal. Horizontal is my regular screen, never had an issue yet. Second screen just chills out and displays whatever I left on there.

Yes, so do most people here. My question here is if the vertical 'seams' get annoying and interfere with spanned gaming, if you can even do spanned gaming on vertical monitors like that.

Yes, and it's awesome..

Think about it as a big 3440x1920(after bezel compensation) monitor. FOV is nice on LLL eyefinity, but at some point everything on the edges is too slanted and stretched to look decent.

Great for coding and document viewing.

Yeah I love portrait. As a programmer I tend to have one portrait and one landscape. People often look at me weird or I'll get the occasional "that's cool."

PL is a ugly setup indeed, but with 2 monitors it's a great best-of-both-worlds combination.

Not sure what you meant by "PL" but I totally agree with the rest of what you said.

It's shorthand for portrait-landscape. If you look through the threads here, there's a lot of people using that as the description of their set ups.

Once you go portrait we don't want you back, oh wait that doesn't rhyme...

I would never go portrait

I need this. I've been wanting to go portrait forever.

God damn, that's a lot of bezel.

Movies & porn on that, NO SIR!

Whats with all the portrait hate in here? All Ive heard for gaming is that it's awesome.

This is almost exactly the same as your previous submission...

The bezels don't bother you? i think it would bother the shit out of me. if i had 4 monitors, i'd put the 2 middle in landscape and the 2 outside ones portrait. since i watch videos and play games, and code.

Awesome! I've always been curious why we don't see more portrait, or at least hybrid-portrait (ie center screen in portrait, outer screens landscape) setups. Sure, "the bezels" and all, but the bezels will be an issue with any multi-display until we can manufacture screens that don't have them.

Not true, I went portrait for one day with my eyefinity setup, i sucked balls for gaming. I have 3 monitors.

Unless you ever want to play a game again...

5 would be epic! 4 looks super nice for a lot of multitasking! I've been trying to find a 3rd Samsung 245BW but it's so old my options are looking more and more like i'm going to have to upgrade to get three. Looks nice!

Dat bezel! How can you stand it?

Maybe not for gaming, but definitely for technical writing or anything else that involves a lot of scrolling.

Jean luc Picard face palm that's why we have that option!!! Bad ass....

Portrait setups should be implemented more in office settings, especially in desktop publishing.

Have you considered de-bezeling the monitors?

I had 5x1 portrait for about a week. Sure it looked amazing, but it wasn't particularly usable. Now I just have 2 over 3 widescreen, much better.

I would just got for a larger wide screen.

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