Wide screen displays

While wide screen formats are good for movies or images shot this way, they suck for the regular daily work in front of the monitor. Text is written from up to down and this is the direction that we need more room into while working.

I got a display with a rotating stand recently and I could say that I love working on it rotated. It is not even a widescreen, but a 19" 1280x1024 (4:3 format). 1024x1280 is just a lot better. The programs that I use most just rock in this direction. E.g. the terminal window, the web browser, the mail client, the document editor and the PDF reader.

Try it this way, you will also love it.

Several notes:

• I mostly use maximized windows and change between the applications with a keyboard shortcut. If I had a really large display (30"+) with sufficient resolution I might have made different working habits. E.g. to use a vertically tiled windows or even windows scattered all around.

• How do you "graphic people" feel about using a screen which is higher than wider ?

• I'm not quite sure if the wide formats are actually better for multimedia. If I recall correctly they replaced the standard one (4:3) because the human eyes have more peripheral vision in this direction. This, by itself alone, is not convincing enough for me. First we use a limited part of our peripheral vision anyway, and have plenty of advance in each direction, and second is the complete lack of neck movement a good thing for anyone ?!

• Too bad if you have a wide screen laptop. In this case I could just recommend trying to get most use of the limited vertical space. E.g. try moving your task bar on the side of your screen and learn the shortcuts for the full screen mode of the applications that you use.