QUESTION - hooking up a second monitor

Recently I added a second monitor to our iMac and happily found that instead of just a mirrored display, there is a way to have each monitor show different things.

To set up: System Preferences>Displays and on your main monitor you will see a box that has three tabs: Display | Arrangement | Color.

Click on Arrangement and you will see an icon for each monitor. The main one will have a white section that mimics where your menu bar shows on your real monitor. The auxiliary one will be plain. (At least this is how mine looks.)

The instructions in the box are: "To rearrange the displays, drag them to the desired position. (I dragged the auxiliary monitor icon to the left of the main, which is the setup of my monitors in real life.) To relocate the menu bar, drag it to a different display." (I didn't do this, but included it so you'd have it.)

Next: At the bottom left of the Displays box, there is a box labeled Mirror Displays. Leave the box UNCHECKED so the main monitor has your usual desktop and the auxiliary monitor is plain. That way, you can open something on the main monitor, click & hold on the top of the window and swing it over to the other monitor, release. The menu bar will stay on the main monitor (unless you move that, too) so when you want to do something that requires using it, just remember to click there. [If you check the box, then of course you will have mirrored displays.]

Last item: while you have the Displays box in use, your auxiliary monitor will also have a Displays box, but with only two tabs: Display | Color. You can tweak each of those things for just the auxiliary monitor, just like you can for the main monitor.

Hope this helps and wasn't overkill.

--Rose

In my previous post, I meant to say that extended desktop might be what the original poster was referring to as split screen. I used "split screen" in my post, but it is actually an "extended desktop."

--Rose

I guess you could call an extended desktop a kind of split screen, especially if you had two different applications running.
One one the first monitor and the other further across the desktop on the second monitor.

Appreciate the help. Wonder where the OP went to

P

went to the Chocolate Factory, maybe? lol