One can not have enough screen "real-estate" when working with photos, or while exploring your web-development skillz. So, a single display is simply not an option in my case......
Next to my 27" iMac stands a Dell 24" TFT Display. This Dell display is being abused for two things;
- extended display for my iMac, and
- as a main monitor for my (Windows) work laptop
using the input selector on the TFT display.
Since I'm a guy and I rock at multitasking (*cough*), I have both my Windows (work) laptop and my iMac powered on. In this scenario I have only one active display on my iMac. The second display should therefor not be used, and this is where Apple fails miserably.
On the iMac (and I'm sure that every Apple computer is affected by this), there's no way of disconnecting the secondary display through software. As long as the display adapter is connected, your Mac will 'see' the other display, and therefore be using it.
This is no real problem when your displays have exactly the same resolution. When this is the case, you simply select 'Mirror Displays' in the Display preferences pane (in the System Preferences). But when the resolutions are different (as it is in my case) mirroring won't work, because the iMac (which has the highest resolution of the two) will switch to the lower resolution of the second display.....
The only Mac-only solution to this problem is to PHYSICALLY remove the Display Port connector at the back of your iMac. This is simply not acceptable. Even on Windows, there's an easy way of switching between different display settings and configurations ON THE FLY.
There is a way around this problem. The downside is that it costs money. €14 to be exact. There's a little utility called SwitchResX which solves this problem by giving the user exactly what Apple fails to deliver; a way to interact with your displays.
SwitchResX Main WindowYou can create different monitor setups, and assign short-cut keys to them, so switching between configurations is quite easy.
SwitchResX Display SetsAfter finishing my preffered display settings, I can switch between 1 and 2 display with shift + cmd + F14 or F15. There are also some tricks in remebering what application were running on which display, so when you switch back to the two (or more) display setting, the application windows will also be placed on the display they were on earlier.
Excellent tool. It's worth every penny for the additional functionality like short-cut keys, and remembering application settings etc., but the default functionality of enabling/disabling displays should be a function of the Operating System.