IDEA: Multi Monitor placement tool

[Jimdoria]

When working with multiple monitors, it's possible to position them relative to one another, using the Display control panel in Windows XP (and I assume Vista). For example, if your right monitor (2nd) is physically positioned so the the bottom of the screen is halfway up the height of the left monitor (1st), you can adjust this offset in the display control panel by dragging the #2 box upwards. A tooltip shows the pixels offset.



I have a laptop, and it comes with a utility to switch between single monitor (undocked) and multi-monitor (docked) operation, so that's great, but it doesn't remember the offset for screen #2. So every time I switch between one display and two displays, I have to go in to the Display control panel and re-set the offset manually, using the mouse. It's time consuming, fairly imprecise and easily forgotten.

Is it possible to create an app that would automatically re-set the screen offset to a specified value? This would be helpful for other laptop users, and probably also for people who frequently change the resolution of any of their multiple monitors.

My laptop's utility lets me specify an app to run after the switch to 2 monitors occurs, and coding snack that could set these values would clean things up nicely. I checked the AHK docs, and I did see some functions in SysGet (GetSys?) that return screen metric info, but I didn't see any way to set these values, so I thought I'd ask the expert. Thanks!

[jgpaiva]

Unfortunatelly, you're not the first one to request this.
Actually, i want this myself, but have no idea how to do it

But i'm very interested in that tool you mentioned in your post!
Is it specific of your laptop?

[lanux128]

try UltraMon, it's quite a feature-rich multi-monitor software. maybe it can help you.

[Jimdoria]

Thanks for the heads up, Lanux. UltraMon isn't what I need though. UltraMon helps:

* efficiently move windows and maximize windows across the desktop
Already get this with the built-in NVidia utility. Besides, I can count the times I've wanted to maximize a single window across two desktops on the fingers of one hand.

* manage more applications with the Smart Taskbar
Don't need this. I use virtual desktops.

* control application positioning with UltraMon Shortcuts
Not really needed either.

* multi-monitor support for desktop wallpapers and screen savers
I have a multimon wallpaper utility (DisplayFusion) already, and I don't use anything other than the default Windows screen saver, which already supports multiple monitors.

* mirror your main monitor to secondary monitors for a presentation
My laptop's built-in display manager utility already does this. This strikes me as another "hardly ever need it" feature. I'd set it up so that the presentation ran full screen on Monitor 2 while my speaker's notes were on Monitor 1.

Not saying that UltraMon isn't a great app, it's just that I'm not inclined to pay for something that mostly supplies me with features I already have.

It's been a long time since I've done any Windows development, but if AHK can't handle this I may have to bite the bullet and see if I can hack something out myself. I'm hoping not to have to go that route, though, because it'll probably never get past the wishful thinking phase.