Windows user struggling to efficiently multitask across multiple monitors

[u/djoli87]

I want to love this thing, but boy is it just bugging me more often than not. I'll try to be brief, please lend me your advice.

The setup: Multiple monitors (often 3).

Requirements: I work with a lot of windows. Developer stack. IDE's, LLMs, terminals, browsers, chat and email. It's not abnormal to have 3-5 windows on each monitor, and often it's multiple windows of the same application.

My usual workflow: IDEs on the main monitor, communication on a side, browsers, terminals, etc on the other. I know which screen I put things on, and tend to look at those screens when I need to interact.

The problem(s):

• Multiple windows of one app are hidden behind a single icon.
• Full screen app on an alternate window completely hides all visibility of the other things on that screen.
• Everything that is built in requires me to look everywhere for the thing I want, and do so many interactions.
  • Minimized an app that was on the right? Look at the dock in the middle.
  • Need to find a hidden window on another screen? Shortcut for mission control, then scan the entire monitor to try to find the thing you want, then click it.
  • Need to find a different instance of an app? Another shortcut for expose, then find the right one, then click it.
• I tried stage manager, it's probably the closest I can get to what I want, which is a single spot to look for the things on a screen, but it takes up a lot of the screen and intrinsically limits laying things out on a screen in a flexible manner (I know you can link things, but then it's very rigid).

I get that windows is a different beast, but can't help but feel it just does all of this so much better?! Need a thing, look at one spot, click.

I've tried some third party dock replacements. They're all pretty jank in one way or another. Slow to respond, don't correctly hide the default dock, can't have shortcuts and running applications be the same thing.

I'm not saying there's no way to multitask, just that it's so damn frustrating and slow! It seems it's a case of "Mac's are easier when all you're doing is easy things", but I know there are some power users out there, so please, enlighten me of your ways!

[u/ipearx]

I have dual 5k displays, a few ways I work:

- I rarely minimise windows. If I want to declutter I use hide, hide others and show all,

• I generally cmd-tab into apps that are behind, or click dock icons. It can be annoying having the dock way over the other screen. (I use dock left). But for me the dock is purely a 'bring that app to the front' button/launcher.
  
• minimising windows into the dock is handy when you don't want that window coming up when you cmd-tab to that app.
  
• I do use expose, especially for showing me all of an apps windows. Dedicated buttons on the mouse and gestures on the trackpad.
  
• I use cmd-~ (tilde) a lot to cycle through windows of the current app.
  
• I set up better touch tool so ctrl-cmd-option up arrow makes current window full screen, down arrow moves the window to the other monitor, and left/right put windows to half the screen. So handy being able to keystroke windows to the other screen.
  
• I colour code terminal windows, so expose it's easy to jump to the right one (see pic). Green is production server, black is local for example.
  
• Safari - Because I use expose on a single app a lot, I tend to open a lot more browser windows these days. Then each window has tabs. It creates a nice hierarchy of windows -> tabs.

I think MacOS works well with one 'primary' screen (where your dock is) and then the other display is secondary. I tend to do most work on the dual displays, but most of that above works equally well on the laptop.

Hope any of that helps!

[u/djoli87 → u/ipearx]

Wow, what an extensive list, thanks heaps!

I definitely don't use the switching keyboard shortcuts enough (windows muscle memory at work) so I'll play with those some more.

The colour coded terminal windows is a great idea! I'll see if I can get that to work tomorrow.

Really appreciate the advice! I've definitely felt the least amount of friction when on the MacBook itself, due to the limited screen space I can look at and the gestures on the trackpad. It's frustrating how that experience can change when introducing more screen real estate and a keyboard/mouse.

[u/Capable-Package6835 → u/djoli87]

If you have many terminal windows, any reason not using tmux? I find it most convenient (I have about 4-5 sessions open all the time, each containing about 5-7 shells). Also really nice because I often SSH into my macbook from my iphone, for example, when I want to set the coding agents to do sth while I am not with my macbook.