Dual Screen setup - this has been driving me quietly crazy...

I'm all for hearing that there's a simple fix for this but first I just want to share and see if anyone else is experiencing the same thing...

If I run FCPX on a single display I can click on an element in the browser and it will be selected and the browser will be "active". If I then click on a clip in the project/timeline that clip will be selected and the timeline area "active". If I click back on a clip in the Browser it will be selected and the browser will be "active".

So far so good.

Now if I switch to dual displays and show my event on the second display here what i get trying the same thing:

I can click on an element in the browser and it will be selected and the browser will be "active". If I then click on a clip in the project/timeline that clip will be selected and the timeline area "active". But now if I click back on a clip in the Browser it will NOT be selected yet the browser will be "active".

This is kind of like walking around all day with a stone in your shoe.

Anyone else noticing this?

Hi Doug
If I am understanding you correctly, this is standard OS behavior.
With 2 or more monitors, after moving the cursor to a different "inactive monitor" then the 1st click is just making that monitor active, so then you need to click again to select area/action/etc… You can see this behavior in the "Menu Bar". While inactive, it will be light grey no color in the "window buttons", when you click anywhere in monitor area it will change to normal dark grey and black and the window buttons will have the 3 colors.
So yes, selecting a clip for example will require 2 clicks on an inactive monitor.

Hope this helps, Greg

Thanks Greg - I thought so too but the behaviour is inconsistent depending on what you click on. If you click on a clip either in the timeline or the browser the screen becomes active and the click is selected. However if you click on a clip in list view the screen and browser become active but the clip requires a second click to be selected.

It was that seemingly arbitrary rule of when you need to click once and when you need to click again that was bugging me.

After more experimentation this is what I have found:

A second click is required if going to the other screen and clicking on...

• A clip in list view
• A category of effect or transition (though not if you click directly onto a specific effect - unless it's a generator, then you have to click again)
• A Music or Sound Effect clip in the Music and Sound Effect pane as well as the folders in top half
• Anything in the Libraries / Events / Folders pane
• The top section of the Photos pane (though not the photos themselves)

It's almost a rule of "text based stuff" needs another click, except that specific generators need a second click and some text based elements such as the info panel of the inspector do not.

I'm thinking this might just be a case of providing apple with feedback.

One of my greatest disappointments with FCPX is that an external display doesn't act like it did in FCP7. Instead, it's actually another active desktop and that drives me NUTS. I just want a mirrored display JUST FOR THE VIEWER out of the HDMI port on my Mac Pro. That's how it worked in FCP7 and it was glorious. I don't want my mouse to wander over on it. I don't want files to start accumulating on it. I just want it to show my video at its native resolution and be off when I am not using FCP. There's no way to do that and it's infuriating.

Redifer wrote: One of my greatest disappointments with FCPX is that an external display doesn't act like it did in FCP7. Instead, it's actually another active desktop and that drives me NUTS. I just want a mirrored display JUST FOR THE VIEWER out of the HDMI port on my Mac Pro. That's how it worked in FCP7 and it was glorious. I don't want my mouse to wander over on it. I don't want files to start accumulating on it. I just want it to show my video at its native resolution and be off when I am not using FCP. There's no way to do that and it's infuriating.

Humm. Perhaps I'm missing something in your request but your desire for the hdmi port on your Mac Pro to be a mirror of the viewer is exactly what fcpx does. Works in my 2013 iMac as well as Mac book pro retina. Perhaps tell me
More about your setup. What display are you using from the hdmi?

No it doesn't, it becomes another connected display. Like if you plugged another monitor into a display port. It shows a desktop when you exit FCP. Your mouse can travel onto it. All bad things for me. Have you ever used an external monitor with FCP7? And by that I don't mean a second desktop.

Just to bring it back I have found an interesting additional inconsistency:

If you skim the playhead over the project/timeline on a non active window will become active and skimming will commence. However if you then mouse back to the browser on the second (now non-active) screen and hover over the clips in the browser neither the screen nor the browser will become active - it first requires a click. Go back the other way, no click required.

Hi Redifer,
Maybe I'm missing something… If you select "Mirror Displays" in System Preferences, then you get a mirror; an exact duplicate of what is on your "main" screen. It will show whatever is going on with only dpi and size differences. You can use your mouse cursor while watching in either monitor.
If "Mirror displays" is not checked, you get a second monitor that you can move info/windows/apps on.

They did add a second menu bar and changed the behavior of multiple monitors, but that is an OS not FCPX feature that was requested by lots of folks. Is that what you mean? Before, you had to control the second monitor and dock from the main monitor, now you can control via any monitor. Seems like a good thing to me.

Within FCPX, different actions happen on each monitor according to how you set up FCPX. Granted I would like some more options in what is shown on each monitor, but if you select second monitor from System Prefs, then you can assign "windows" to the second screen.

What Doug (OP) is talking about is slightly different. His complaint is inconsistency is clicking in the second monitor area.
Will need to investigate his findings.
To be honest, doesn't really bother me if I have to click once or twice. It seems apparent to me what is happening.
Now while running 4 monitors…
Hope this helps, Greg

What Doug (OP) is talking about is slightly different. His complaint is inconsistency is clicking in the second monitor area.
Will need to investigate his findings.
To be honest, doesn't really bother me if I have to click once or twice. It seems apparent to me what is happening.

Yes, that's correct. It does bother me in that it breaks my flow of work...in the same way that you might be bothered by a keyboard shortcut doing something slightly different depending on which screen is active.

Or maybe a better analogy is a keyboard with a key that is stuck and sometimes requires pressing once, sometimes twice. It would inhibit your "flow" ...your ability to concentrate on what you were writing.

That is what I am experiencing.

VidGreg wrote: Hi Redifer,
Maybe I'm missing something… If you select "Mirror Displays" in System Preferences, then you get a mirror; an exact duplicate of what is on your "main" screen. It will show whatever is going on with only dpi and size differences. You can use your mouse cursor while watching in either monitor.
If "Mirror displays" is not checked, you get a second monitor that you can move info/windows/apps on.

Mirroring on or off it doesn't work like I'd prefer. First of all my main display has more resolution than the 1080p monitor I have. So if I turn mirroring on the icons on the desktop get all jumbled up.

What I'd like is for the second monitor to ONLY display the main video from FCPX. Full screen. No controls, everything controlled by the app. no blinking back and forth a dozen times when I turn the monitor on or off. Just like in FCP7. Granted you had to use external hardware in FCP7 for that, like a DV device or an external Blackmagic device. Unfortunately if you select a Blackmagic device you can run into serious performance issues that magically go away when you tell FCPX not to deal with the device. I was hoping the HDMI out would be a fix for all this but it's just a display port. Maybe I'll try the Intensity Shuttle again. Maybe some things have been fixed.

On an older Mac Pro with a graphics card that has hdmi out (like Sapphire Radeon 7950), selecting hdmi in FCPX preferences and then turning on AV Output from the FCPX menu does exactly what you are asking for (a dedicated vide and audio display without scopes, menus, etc). Suitable for sending to a broadcast monitor. The new Mac Pro ( according to others on this forum) also does this. Are you selecting your display in FCPX and enabling AV Output, or just connecting it and managing it in OSX?