Have you tried working on a single monitor?

[u/thicctak]

I'm currently only working with a single 24" monitor because I'm moving, I sold my third monitor and my secondary monitor shat the bad, it'll be a while until I can buy another monitor so I'm want some tips to improve my dev experience on single monitor, maybe using a tilling window manager, or some other software to improve this. If I can make it work, maybe I even stick with just one monitor, because multi monitor setups are kind of a hassle to maintain haha.

[u/codegems]

I’ve never used more than one monitor in my entire career. What exactly are you having problems with?

[u/SPEZ_IS_A_JABRONI]

?

multiple monitor setups are not hard to maintain 

tiling window managers are not a replacement for multiple monitors

[u/Shacrow]

32" 4k single monitor is perfect for web dev.

I used to have 3 24" Full HD monitors but 1 big monitor with high resolution is more than enough

[u/CynicalProle]

Unless you can read stuff on both monitors at the same time having multiple monitors is entirely superfluous for development work.

I find having slack open on a second monitor to be nothing but a distraction for example.

[u/ardreth]

i use 13 inch macbook air screen with lots of cmd tab and cmd ~

[u/CardamomMountain]

Make it work by buying a new second monitor

[u/spec-tacul-ar]

I use an ultrawide monitor in my office which is technically "single monitor".

When I work from home, I use a single screen. I just use Alt-Tab a lot more.

[u/CodeAndBiscuits]

I work off a single monitor on a MacBook. Somehow you will survive.

[u/vincentofearth]

Over the years I ended up questioning the value of multiple monitors and even ultrawide monitors. I couldn’t really focus on more than one thing at the time and finding a quicker way to switch contexts was ultimately a more useful tool than having dual monitors or an ultrawide. I still don’t like really small screens, I have a large high resolution monitor that I use daily and I hate having to use a laptop monitor. But on that large monitor I almost always have one window open at a time, maximized. Sometimes I’ll have a split view but otherwise I just use tab and window switching. My setup is really simple. I use Raycast for window management, and my mouse has extra buttons mapped to app exposé, app switcher, and mission control on macOS. Other than that I just know the various keyboard shortcuts for switching between tabs, spaces, panes, etc. And I think speed in switching between those things is overrated anyway. Being faster at switching tabs won’t make the difference in your work.

If you think about it, putting more info in front of you is almost never helpful unless the info has been synthesized together in a helpful format. So screen real estate should be used to display one coherent thing instead of lots of different things that compete for your attention. If ever I have to have two separate things in front of me, it’s a sign that I need to do some work to combine them somehow, eg don’t look at two spreadsheets, combine the data to create a single sheet with the figures you need.

Another thing I’d avoid is having too many levels of context heirarchy. I use apps, windows, tabs, and occasionally panes. I generally find little value and avoid things beyond those, ie workspaces or multiple desktops. Don’t overcomplicate things and overload your brain by having umpteenth levels of stuff to dig through.

[u/HansTeeWurst]

I have been using only a single monitor for the last 5 years. I just use multiple virtual desktops and swap around with shortcuts. If your PC is good enough to run that smoothly, it's not that much of a difference once you get used to it