Span program across multple monitors

[robertfah]

Hi all,

I've got 2, 20" monitors running 1280x1024 that I develop on. I've written a program that I want to span both monitors when maximized, is there a way to do this? I tried to set the width to 2560, but it doesn't seem to work.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[robertfah]

Ok, I think I found some help, which is my code below:

namespace BSOD
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
        {
            base.OnLoad(e);
            if (Screen.AllScreens.Length > 1)
            {
                Form1 frm = new Form1();
                frm.StartPosition = FormStartPosition.Manual;
                Screen screen = GetSecondaryScreen();

                frm.Location = screen.WorkingArea.Location;
                frm.Size = new Size(screen.WorkingArea.Width, screen.WorkingArea.Height);
                frm.Show();
            }
        }

        public Screen GetSecondaryScreen()
        {
            if (Screen.AllScreens.Length == 1)
                return null;

            foreach (Screen screen in Screen.AllScreens)
                if (screen.Primary == false)
                    return screen;

            return null;
        }
    }
}

But now I get an error that says "Error creating window handle". When running it through the debugger, the code is looping indefinately......anyone know why?

 

[djfrear]

You will find a pretty good implementation here: (sorry, it's a google cache as the original page doesnt appear to be working)

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach...ise+across+2+screnes&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk

 

[Nelviticus]

The reason that Windows doesn't maximise apps to the whole desktop (i.e. all monitors) is because you might have monitors with different resolutions. I have this at home, a 1680 x 1050 main monitor and a 900 x 1440 secondary one (i.e. a wide-screen in portrait mode). Maximising an app to both of those wouldn't make any sense.

If you want you app to work on all multi-monitor set-ups you need to display it as a normal (non-maximised) window and set its dimensions accordingly, whilst taking account of the facts that a) the user may have more than two monitors and b) they may not be side-by-side!

Alternatively there's a really handy multi-monitor tool that I use called UltraMon. Amongst its features is an option to add a control to every window that maximises it to your desktop.

Regards

Nelviticus