One of the interesting things that Apple seems to do in MacOS is to remember specific screens. Plugging into them recalls a previous display arrangement setup. I noticed this when I had two external screens at work, and one at home, and when I moved my Macbook between work and home the arrangement would stay correct, even though they were on either side at work and above at home.
Sadly this is something Windows 10 does not do well. When I plug my Surface Pro into an external monitor my app moves from the laptop screen to the external screen and stays 'full screen'.
Here is a simple example of what I would appreciate if it existed:
I am at work, I am connected to two large screens. I put Outlook on my right screen at about 1/4 the size of the screen. I disconnect, all my windows jump to the laptop screen (great) and I have outlook in full screen mode. Now I reconnect my dual monitors. I'd love Outlook to jump back to where it was, and the size it was, on that right screen when I unplugged. Now I get home and plug into a 2K screen (rather than the 4K screen at work) and I want Outlook to be a bit larger on that screen. When I unplug I want it back on my laptop full screen, when I plug in at work, back to the right monitor quarter size, when I get home back to the monitor about half size.
Remember which screens I plug into, remember what the app settings were when I last plugged into that screen. Restore them when I re-attach.
I think part of the challenge might be related to adapter use.
On my MBP, I connect either through HDMI or a displayport->VGA adapter. My MBP exhibits the behavior you mention if the displays are on difference adapters, but it doesn't recognize different displays plugged into the same port/adapter (e.g. all HDMI displays are the same to it, all VGA displays are the same to it).
My Surface only has a minidisplayport port, and I suspect the adapter I'm using isn't fancy enough to tell the Surface that the attached displays are in fact different.
Definitely a bummer though. and 4k support in general on Windows 10 (and macOS, but less so) is a little iffy. Issues really start to show when remoting into a session on a device hooked up to a 4k monitor.
The question is fingerprinting the monitor. In the HDMI world you can get the serial number from the EDID record usually. If you're in an adapter which is interposing as a 'virtual' monitor between you and the real monitor all bets are off. We had an old Matrox unit that would take 3 DVI monitors and make them appear as one monitor for example.
On the surface dock the dual monitors connect to the dock's DP connectors.
This functionality is really broken in OSX though. Forget plugging and unplugging them, even MacOS putting my displays to sleep causes it to move windows around randomly when it wakes back up. Particularly moving a bunch of them off the screens completely.
This works for me With Win 10. At work I use a docking station with 2 screens. At home I plug a MiniDP adapter with a single monitor. At work screens are side by side. At home laptop screen is below monitor. Whenever I plug in it knows what configuration to go to.
I regularly notice that if I open in a file in Explorer that launches an app that's not opened, or launch a taskbar app, it will open on the opposite monitor.
It's baffling since I often physically move my main monitor, either bring it closer in front to sit back and play a game or rotate it to the side so I can watch videos from the nearby couch (with a trackball as controller).
I never determined that it was opening them in a remembered fashion, in fact I'm pretty sure that sometimes closing the window from my main and relaunching another file it will pop up on the other side again, so I made a habit of dragging files to prevent that.
The impression I got is that it is spreading to the less busy monitor as a "favor", but it's not consistent - can't reproduce right now. I really have no clue what the logic is, and whether it's the behavior of some apps I use or the OS, or something weird related to having 2 mouses plugged in.
This is interesting to me. As an avid user of multi-monitors (no such thing as too many screens!) only recently has OSX (er, MacOS) even been at par with Windows.
I also agree that these days MacOS does a better job at multi-monitor for laptops, but still is lacking in other areas of usability vs. W10 to me.
The one thing I really miss when switching to MacOS from using my windows workstation is the windows-arrow key shortcuts to quickly move windows between screens and snap them to half the screen size. I waste an amazing amount of screen real estate on my Mac simply because resizing windows and moving them around takes too much time and dexterity.
Both have horrible monitor re-connection bugs, you just have to spend time with them to see them. MacOS windows still constantly get moved to almost-off-screen where you can barely click and drag them to restore, Windows sometimes doesn't wake one out of 4 sleeping monitors, etc. It's certainly miles better than even 2 years ago, but annoying bugs abound. Especially if you plug in at home and at work to different monitor configurations.
In general multi-monitor support until very recently seemed like a half-baked solution on both platforms. I'm very happy with the progress on this front (after a decade of stagnation) in the last couple years. I am cautiously optimistic this development pace will continue and finally iron out all the annoying usability bugs we've been living with for 10+ years.
Magnet helps to move and resize windows. There are many similar apps. Magnet is simple and attractive with easy to use default shortcuts.
Either drag to a corner/edge or press `⌃⌥[LUNE←↓↑→]`. `⌃⌥⌘[←→]` for previous/next display. `⌃⌥` + `Enter` to maximize, `C` to center, and `Backspace` to restore. Can do thirds now as well.
I would still get excited to see a well-executed tiling WM in macOS.
> One of the interesting things that Apple seems to do in MacOS is to remember specific screens. Plugging into them recalls a previous display arrangement setup.
Linux does that as well: it remembers the identifying information of attached displays, and remembers the last configuration you used with that set of displays attached.
That simple heuristic works well for docking, TVs, projectors, and many other use cases.
MATE 1.16.1 on Mint 18.1 (and more than likely the many previous versions going back to the GNOME 2 days) remembers the resolution and positioning of any attached monitors. At home I use a Thinkpad and a 30" 2560x1600. At work the same Thinkpad and two 24" 1920x1200 screens. MATE recalls the various layouts without issue. If I have used a projector to present, it will retain that configuration for next time I use that projector as well.
Additionally, if I disconnect a monitor it will re-position any applications that were open on the disconnected monitor to the remaining one. If I reconnect that same monitor the applications from it will migrate back to it again. Very neat, just works, gets out of my way and I can get on with the task I am trying accomplish. This comes in handy when switching back and forth the input on the 30" screen to have it show the display output of my desktop PC switching the input has the effect of disconnecting the monitor as far as the laptop is concerned.
This seems like the sort of thing that would be specific to the window manager or desktop environment (not even X11), so indeed saying "Linux does this" is not especially helpful. Not OP, but I've observed this on KUbuntu, both 14.04 and 16.04; I assume that it's a generic KDE feature.
This is by far my #1 usability complaint for Windows as well. It's especially painful if you're using unscaled 4k displays and like to have windows arranged in a 2x2 grid (using corner snapping).
On disconnecting any display, it completely forgets about where your windows were originally (even the ones on the display that is still connected), and rearranges them seemingly randomly in left-right splits on the remaining displays, and makes no effort to restore your configuration when you plug the display back in.
MacOS has handled this aspect a lot better, in my experience, although it has its own issues like not being able to snap arrange windows without 3rd party tools in the first place.
Has anyone tried the latest insider builds? Has the situation improved there?
Sadly this is something Windows 10 does not do well. When I plug my Surface Pro into an external monitor my app moves from the laptop screen to the external screen and stays 'full screen'.
Here is a simple example of what I would appreciate if it existed:
I am at work, I am connected to two large screens. I put Outlook on my right screen at about 1/4 the size of the screen. I disconnect, all my windows jump to the laptop screen (great) and I have outlook in full screen mode. Now I reconnect my dual monitors. I'd love Outlook to jump back to where it was, and the size it was, on that right screen when I unplugged. Now I get home and plug into a 2K screen (rather than the 4K screen at work) and I want Outlook to be a bit larger on that screen. When I unplug I want it back on my laptop full screen, when I plug in at work, back to the right monitor quarter size, when I get home back to the monitor about half size.
Remember which screens I plug into, remember what the app settings were when I last plugged into that screen. Restore them when I re-attach.