How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

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rakunavi
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How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by rakunavi »

Hello all,

If you use multiple monitors and open multiple windows with one window assigned to each monitor, you can set only one window to full screen mode. In other words, you cannot set all windows to full screen mode at the same time. Is there any setting or method to enable this?

The most relevant setting would be "Which monitor to use" in the "Full Screen" category under "File Tab -> Preferences".

https://help.pdf-xchange.com/pdfxe9/index.html?full-screen_ed.html

If you set this to "Current", the active window will be displayed in full screen. However, at the same time, the full screen mode of the inactive window on another monitor is cancelled. Even if you change the setting to something other than "Current", none of them will work as desired.

Thank you,
rakunavi

- PDF-XChange Editor Plus Version:9.1 build 356.0
- OS Version: Windows 10 Home/Pro 21H1 Build 19043.1237
- PC Model: Lenovo IdeaPad C340-15IWL / HP ProDesk 600 G1
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hello, rakunavi

Thank you for the report, Full screen mode is intended as a presentation mode, not an editing feature, and so at the moment we do not offer the ability to have more than one fullscreen desktop focus. I will run this by our Dev team for consideration, but I cannot promise any changes in this area of the software at this time.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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rakunavi
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Re: How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by rakunavi »

Thanks Daniel,

I think this feature is one of the few drawbacks when comparing PDF-XChange Editor and Acrobat, so I'm looking forward to improving it someday.

Kind regards,

rakunavi
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Re: How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by Dimitar - Tracker Supp »

Hello rakunavi,

We will do our best to improve it.

In the meantime, you can use the portable version of the PDF Editor to run separate instances of the Editor with their own settings, including using in full-screen mode.

You can download it from this link:

https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFXEdit9_Portable.zip

Regards.
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rakunavi
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Re: How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by rakunavi »

Thanks Dimitar,

This issue is not limited to whether all windows can be made full-screen mode, but it also affects operability. In windows that are no longer full-screen mode, all screen elements, such as tool buttons, bookmarks, and hyperlinks in documents, will no longer work. To make it work, you need to click once to change the window to full-screen mode, or turn off full-screen mode and return all windows to normal mode.

When you mouse over in windows that are no longer full-screen mode, the color of each element changes, giving the user the expectation that it will work. However, as mentioned above, it does not actually work, creating a gap between expectations and reality, which confuses the user. Although it only increases the time and effort to click once, it has a large effect on operability. I look forward to future updates to improve usability.

Kind regards,

rakunavi
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Re: How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello rakunavi,

While not exactly the same as "all displays in full screen mode" - have you considered trying e.g. the hiding of ribbon/menus that can be achieved with the F8 key? Pressing it should hide all the menus/ribbon, leaving you with only the files on each screen (along with any panes that are specific to the file -e.g. page thumbnails - that you can also hide/show as needed)?
This will also mean that all the separate windows still give you access to all of the tools available in the Editor - something that the Full Screen presentation mode prevents.

Kind regards,
Stefan
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rakunavi
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Re: How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by rakunavi »

Thanks Stefan,

The F8 shortcut key is already one of my favorite shortcuts. There are two reasons to stick to full-screen mode. (1) Of course, the biggest reason is the size of the document area. (2) The second is to eliminate unnecessary causes that distract you when browsing documents.

The second reason is further divided into static and dynamic.
(2-A) Toolbars and ribbons are static elements because their appearance does not change over time.
(2-B) On the other hand, there are dynamic elements such as the shape of the mouse pointer changing on comments and links due to mouse over. If you want to focus on browsing the document, it's enough that the pointer changes shape when you hover over the link.

The effect of (2-A) can be reduced by using the F8 shortcut.
The effect of (2-B) can be completely eliminated by enabling "Presentation Mode" in the "Full Screen Options" setting.

PDF-XChanger Editor overwhelms competing software with editing features. At the same time, it overwhelms other software, especially Acrobat, in terms of browsing functions in that it can make maximum use of the hardware resources of the PC. After all, all the work related to PDF is naturally done with PDF-XChange Editor, so the demand for full-screen mode becomes much higher.

Kind regards,
rakunavi
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Re: How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

Hi rakunavi,

technically it might be possible to have some kind of 'fullscreen per monitor'. We will think about it but we will not guarantee that it will be possible for sure.

There are all kinds of possible as yet unknown stop-points. We'll have to see what this plays out like.

So, as stated, while not representative of any kind of promise to deliver said features, there is a formal Feature Request for this. For your reference it is RT#5810: Feature request :: Editor :: fullscreen per monitor

cheers
Best regards

Paul O'Rorke
Tracker Support North America
http://www.tracker-software.com
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Re: How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by MedBooster »

I support this idea!
However, in the mean time let me give you some ideas...


image.png
toggle off all toolbars


Use some AutoHotKey script to easily toggle the taskbar on and off.
This is the way I enter "fullscreen" when I want to focus on something and utilize as much screen estate as possible, while on multiple monitors...
You can't customize the function/shortcut buttons in the regular full-screen mode anyway... So that's the reason I don't use it that much anyways.

Here's the AHK script

Code: Select all

;Toggle staskbar on and off
^+F12:: HideShowTaskbar(hide := !hide)
   
HideShowTaskbar(action) {
   static ABM_SETSTATE := 0xA, ABS_AUTOHIDE := 0x1, ABS_ALWAYSONTOP := 0x2
   VarSetCapacity(APPBARDATA, size := 2*A_PtrSize + 2*4 + 16 + A_PtrSize, 0)
   NumPut(size, APPBARDATA), NumPut(WinExist("ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd"), APPBARDATA, A_PtrSize)
   NumPut(action ? ABS_AUTOHIDE : ABS_ALWAYSONTOP, APPBARDATA, size - A_PtrSize)
   DllCall("Shell32\SHAppBarMessage", UInt, ABM_SETSTATE, Ptr, &APPBARDATA)
}
return
;End of Toggle staskbar on and off
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Re: How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by rakunavi »

Hello MedBooster, thank you for your comment.

I too prefer to hide the Windows taskbar. Also, hiding the toolbar with the F8 key is certainly useful in terms of extending the display area, but for the reason stated in (2-B) above (viewtopic.php?p=155394#p155394), it is ideal to be able to run presentation mode on multiple monitors.

For example, when the toolbar is hidden by the F8 key, if you try to change the display area of the page by dragging an appropriate part of the document, and you happen to touch a comment that exists in that area, the comment position will be moved unintentionally.

This is true for both mouse and touch operation. However, touch operation is more difficult to use because, like the mouse, it is not possible to determine in advance whether or not there is a comment by the type of mouse pointer, and thus it is not possible to avoid selecting a comment.

With mouse operation, it is possible to drag with the palm tool to avoid commented areas, because the type of mouse pointer can tell what is in the area to be manipulated. However, using the palm tool while worrying about the structure of the document so as not to accidentally move a comment can be distracting when you simply want to read the text.

If you set the Hand Tool to Exclusive mode, you can avoid unintentional selection and movement of comments even if you use the Hand Tool over them, but now you cannot follow the links as they are.

  • No touching anywhere on the screen can accidentally select a comment.
  • Gestures can be used to zoom in on a page, change the display range, and move the page forward.
  • Links must function properly.
The presentation mode is wonderful in that it can satisfy all three of these requirements at the same time without any special operations. I hope that these three features will be maintained and further support for multiple monitors will be added.

Currently, the workaround is to install and use a portable version of PDF-XCE, as Dimitar mentioned above.
As mentioned in the following topic, it is possible to use it similar to the New Window button by devising the arguments.

Best regards,
rakunavi
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Re: How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by MedBooster »

rakunavi wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 7:35 am Hello MedBooster, thank you for your comment.

I too prefer to hide the Windows taskbar. Also, hiding the toolbar with the F8 key is certainly useful in terms of extending the display area, but for the reason stated in (2-B) above (viewtopic.php?p=155394#p155394), it is ideal to be able to run presentation mode on multiple monitors.

For example, when the toolbar is hidden by the F8 key, if you try to change the display area of the page by dragging an appropriate part of the document, and you happen to touch a comment that exists in that area, the comment position will be moved unintentionally.

This is true for both mouse and touch operation. However, touch operation is more difficult to use because, like the mouse, it is not possible to determine in advance whether or not there is a comment by the type of mouse pointer, and thus it is not possible to avoid selecting a comment.

With mouse operation, it is possible to drag with the palm tool to avoid commented areas, because the type of mouse pointer can tell what is in the area to be manipulated. However, using the palm tool while worrying about the structure of the document so as not to accidentally move a comment can be distracting when you simply want to read the text.

If you set the Hand Tool to Exclusive mode, you can avoid unintentional selection and movement of comments even if you use the Hand Tool over them, but now you cannot follow the links as they are.

  • No touching anywhere on the screen can accidentally select a comment.
  • Gestures can be used to zoom in on a page, change the display range, and move the page forward.
  • Links must function properly.
The presentation mode is wonderful in that it can satisfy all three of these requirements at the same time without any special operations. I hope that these three features will be maintained and further support for multiple monitors will be added.

Currently, the workaround is to install and use a portable version of PDF-XCE, as Dimitar mentioned above.
As mentioned in the following topic, it is possible to use it similar to the New Window button by devising the arguments.

Best regards,
rakunavi

Despite the fact that PDFs can't contain moving elements and effects like PowerPoint files,
I would still also appreciate a good presentation mode supporting the use of multiple displays simultaneously.

Sometimes you might in fact want to be presenting a PDF to an audience like you would present a PowerPoint
(one display in fullscreen, and another in a presenter control mode where you have access to laser pointers, and other tools. )
Wishlist
Bookmarks with page numbers
Optional fixed small icon size in the toolbar
Shift to UNLOCK aspect ratio/i]
Allow more "toolbars" to the title bar
AltGr issues with character input and keyboard shortcuts
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Re: How to display all windows in full screen on multiple monitors?

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello MedBooster,

I will ask our devs for their opinion on that suggestion, however I can not make any promises at this time!
Will post again here if there is any further news on this suggested "presentation mode with multiple screens".

Kind regards,
Stefan
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