External monitor as default
External monitor as default
- Subject: External monitor as default
- From: Bob Smith <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 12:13:01 -0500
I've been living with this annoying problem at least since Panther
days and through numerous Apple laptops and Apple Monitors. I figured
sooner or later Apple would solve it. Looks like they haven't so I'll
post here as a way of begging for a solution.
If you use a laptop with an external monitor occasionally you can set
the external as the main display... meaning it has the menu bar. Each
time you boot with that monitor attached, it gets the menu bar... when
it's not attached the menu bar is on the laptop screen. Colorsync,
unfortunately, isn't as smart. You set the external display as your
default for color management purposes and it works just fine... until
you reboot without the monitor attached. At this point the default is
properly set back to the laptop's LCD. However the next time you
attach the external monitor, the laptop LCD remains the ColorSync
default and most applications are now color managing your nice
external display (which the system recognizes as the Main display with
its menu bar) with the laptop's LCD profile. In other words most
things in most programs look like hell on that really nice external
monitor. Photoshop, which correctly handles two monitors works just
fine. Programs that don't color manage two monitors... which is most
of them... now look horrible on the external display.
I currently see this behavior with a 23" Cinema HD and a 17" MacBook
Pro running 10.5.4. I've seen the exact same behavior going back
several years on a variety of Apple laptop with Apple monitor hardware
combos.
The fix is just to remember to launch the Colorsync Utility every time
you connect the external display; and reset the default display. I've
taken to keeping the ColorSync Utility in the dock for just this
reason. There has to be a better way. Surely someone with more
command line skills than I could write a simple startup script that
would test for the presence of a particular monitor. If there, it's
set as the ColorSync default. Any takers? Any other suggestions?
Thanks!
Bob Smith
Accurate Image • Bob Smith Photographer • Waco Texas USA
http://www.accurateimage.org
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