Layout and multiple monitors

How boards behave across several displays, mixed DPI scaling, resolution changes and taskbar moves.

Multiple monitors is where desktop tools usually break, because the desktop is one logical surface spanning displays that can have different sizes, scaling factors and arrangements — and that arrangement changes whenever a cable is unplugged.

Boards on several displays#

Boards can be placed on any monitor and dragged between monitors. Each is positioned within the Work area of the display it is on, so a board is never placed under the taskbar, whichever edge the taskbar is on.

Mixed DPI#

DeskDrawer declares per-monitor v2 DPI awareness. A laptop at 150% scaling next to an external display at 100% is the ordinary case, and an application that is not per-monitor aware gets bitmap-scaled by Windows and goes blurry on one of them.

Declaring PerMonitorV2 means DeskDrawer is told about the DPI change and redraws at the correct scale — including mid-drag, when a board crosses from one display to the other.

When the display arrangement changes#

Unplugging a monitor, changing resolution, or moving the taskbar can leave boards outside the visible area. Fix misplaced boards in the Tray menu handles this:

• Boards that are off-screen, under the taskbar or overlapping are re-placed, snapped beside other boards.
• Boards that are in a valid position are not moved.

It never changes board contents, names or sizes. If your layout was fine and one board went astray, only that board moves.

What is not stored per monitor#

A board's rectangle is stored in screen coordinates, not as "monitor 2, offset x". Moving a configuration to a machine with a different display arrangement will therefore need a tidy-up; see Backup & restore. This is a real limitation and it is listed in Limitations.