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Vertical dock in middle monitor of 3 monitor setup?

G

Greymarch

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 31, 2012
30
4
I prefer my dock to be arranged vertically (up/down instead of left-to-right.) I keep my dock on the left side of my screen when I use a single monitor. With a 3 monitor setup, is it possible to have the dock in the middle monitor on the left side of the middle monitor, but arranged so the docker is vertical? (up/down.) I dont want the dock in the middle monitor if the dock must be horizontal, nor do I want the dock in the middle monitor if the dock must remain at the bottom of the screen.

I want the dock in my middle monitor of my 3 monitor setup, vertically aligned in the middle monitor, and left-aligned in the middle monitor. Is it possible, and if so, how do I do it?
 
I don't know the answer, but I'm wondering how it works now. You seem to imply that you have a dock on all three monitors, horizontal, at the bottom of the screens. What about show vs. hide as well?
 
Gregg2 said:
I don't know the answer, but I'm wondering how it works now. You seem to imply that you have a dock on all three monitors, horizontal, at the bottom of the screens. What about show vs. hide as well?
Click to expand...

I have one vertical dock, on the left-side of the left-monitor in my 3-monitor setup. No other docks. I want to move the vertical dock to the left-side of the MIDDLE MONITOR.
 
Not trying to be a wise guy here, but what else distinguishes the left monitor from the middle monitor? Can you switch their positions physically?

If that's not possible, I hope someone else weighs in here to help. :)
 
Gregg2 said:
Not trying to be a wise guy here, but what else distinguishes the left monitor from the middle monitor? Can you switch their positions physically?

If that's not possible, I hope someone else weighs in here to help. :)
Click to expand...

If I swapped the monitors, then they would be out of order. I wouldnt be able to move my mouse from the middle monitor to the left monitor, since the system now thinks the middle monitor is actually the left-most monitor.
 
Greymarch said:
If I swapped the monitors, then they would be out of orde. I wouldnt be able to move my mouse from the middle monitor to the left monitor, since the system now thinks the middle monitor is actually the left-most monitor.
Click to expand...
Well you can change what position the system thinks each monitor is in in System Preferences/Display, by dragging them into the order and position you want them, and make one the master by dragging the menu bar to that one. As far as Finder, it can be vexing at times to make it remember its previous position. A little mumbo-jumbo that sometimes works is, after opening it to its default view, repositioning it, then CMD-J (or "Show View Options" in the menu), and click "Use as Default". Works sometimes, but it is one of several reasons I use PathFinder instead of Finder.
 
The OS is smart enough to know when monitors are connected. So it's not going to matter what order you drag the screens into in the System Prefs. Without a 3rd party app, the OS only sees 3 possible locations: left, center and right. There's no way to get it to show up in the center left... because "left" is always going to be whatever screen is on the far left in the System Prefs.

There are tons of "Dock-like" apps available, but they're all complete Dock replacements, not Dock enhancements.
 
With multiple screens and the Dock in the normal bottom position, moving the mouse beyond the bottom of a screen and counting to 1 causes the Dock to move to that screen (sometimes it takes a second try to get it to move).

With the Dock positioned on the left that trick no longer works. Changing the arrangement to a vertical stack doesn't help, nor does setting auto-hide. Looks like a left Dock can only live on the far left.
 
Greymarch said:
I prefer my dock to be arranged vertically (up/down instead of left-to-right.) I keep my dock on the left side of my screen when I use a single monitor. With a 3 monitor setup, is it possible to have the dock in the middle monitor on the left side of the middle monitor, but arranged so the docker is vertical? (up/down.) I dont want the dock in the middle monitor if the dock must be horizontal, nor do I want the dock in the middle monitor if the dock must remain at the bottom of the screen.

I want the dock in my middle monitor of my 3 monitor setup, vertically aligned in the middle monitor, and left-aligned in the middle monitor. Is it possible, and if so, how do I do it?
Click to expand...
As others have said, the side dock will be on the leftmost arranged display. But arrangement doesn't have to match physical layout. I have a display that's to the left of my main, but in the Arrangements tab I set it as above - so I move the mouse up off my main display, and it shows up at the bottom of my other display.

I have my reasons, which aren't related to the dock :) but this is a possible work-around.
 
I found a way to do it, don't know why it took me years to figure this out.

I've managed to achieve it with a help of Wraparound app (Free). It wraps mouse around your monitors so you can setup you monitors arrangement so the monitor you want your dock to be on would be first (if you want dock on left) or last (if you want it on right) and then just wrap mouse movement horizontally.

Here is example of my monitor arrangement before



and this is after



and here's how Wraparounds settings look



so in the end my real wetup looks like this



The only thing that doesn't work is dragging window from middle monitor to the left, it seems to work for an instant but then gets teleported back. But I'm using Spectacle app (Free) to manage windows and I use a shortcut to move windows between monitors so that's not a problem for me at all.

Here's my answer on stackexchange https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/309923/224204
 
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Thanks for sharing your soution. Wraparound is a nifty little utility that I would have loved to have when I had multiple monitors.
 
n1kk said:
I found a way to do it, don't know why it took me years to figure this out.

I've managed to achieve it with a help of Wraparound app (Free). It wraps mouse around your monitors so you can setup you monitors arrangement so the monitor you want your dock to be on would be first (if you want dock on left) or last (if you want it on right) and then just wrap mouse movement horizontally.

Here is example of my monitor arrangement before



and this is after



and here's how Wraparounds settings look



so in the end my real wetup looks like this



The only thing that doesn't work is dragging window from middle monitor to the left, it seems to work for an instant but then gets teleported back. But I'm using Spectacle app (Free) to manage windows and I use a shortcut to move windows between monitors so that's not a problem for me at all.

Here's my answer on stackexchange https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/309923/224204
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1542846022][/doublepost]Hi N1kk. I tried this and would love to have my dock on the left side of the right screen. I have my 2nd screen to the left so macOS sticks the Dock on that 2nd screen. Downloaded the app. but I am not able to get the dock to the right position. Any thoughts?
 
rvdhout said:
[doublepost=1542846022][/doublepost]Hi N1kk. I tried this and would love to have my dock on the left side of the right screen. I have my 2nd screen to the left so macOS sticks the Dock on that 2nd screen. Downloaded the app. but I am not able to get the dock to the right position. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I wanted to do exactly what you are describing. What I did was change the Mojave monitor arrangment to be reversed. I put my right monitor on the left of the other monitor. This kept my dock on the left side of the right-hand monitor but then used Wraparound to have the mouse move between the screens correctly. I just had to enable the far right and far left edges and now the mouse moves between the monitors correctly on the adjoining edge and if I go off the far left edge it wraps back to the far right. This has bugged me for a long time and just did the top/bottom solution but being able to move the mouse more logically is great!
 
Bullzie said:
I wanted to do exactly what you are describing. What I did was change the Mojave monitor arrangment to be reversed. I put my right monitor on the left of the other monitor. This kept my dock on the left side of the right-hand monitor but then used Wraparound to have the mouse move between the screens correctly. I just had to enable the far right and far left edges and now the mouse moves between the monitors correctly on the adjoining edge and if I go off the far left edge it wraps back to the far right. This has bugged me for a long time and just did the top/bottom solution but being able to move the mouse more logically is great!
Click to expand...

>> Thanks. I ended up placing the master monitor on the left (dock on left as well) and the 'slave' monitor on the right. Moving mouse is natural. Using BetterSnapTool to move screens from left to right via a shortcut.
Thanks!
 
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