monitors

I added a second monitor a few months ago with no problems. We had a power failure and now when I boot up the main monitor is changed and I can't seem to get it back without buying a longer cable and moving the monitor positions. Is there somewhere in the system where I can chane which is the main and secondary. alreday tried preferences and monitors. No luck. Help

The setting you are looking for is in the Displays pane in System Preferences. When it opens you should see a tab marked "Arrangement". When the box representing your monitors loads drag the small picture of the menubar to the screen that you want as the primary screen.

Make sure the monitor is properly connected and turned on before you open the Displays pane or you will not see the "Arrangement" tab.

Thanks. That will switch the desktops but I can't get the menu bar and dock to go back to the other monitor.

Make sure the monitor is connected properly and powered on. When you open the Displays pane and go to the "Arrangement" tab make sure mirroring is off. Now you should see one blue icon for each screen.

The icon representing the current main monitor will have a tiny white line at the top of it. You must click right on that line to drag it to the icon representing the monitor you want to be the main screen.

You can tell which icon represents which monitor by clicking in the blue square. The border of that icon will turn red and the same thing will happen to the corresponding monitor.

That did the trick. Thanks so much!!! Now my life is back to normal!

Dave

Glad that got things sorted. I'm not sure those tips are documented as well as they were eons ago when I picked them up.

I couldn't find it. It's obvious now you've pointed it out -one screen has the white line at the top - duh!!. I'm a recent convert from the PC world and there's some stuff that just isn't where I'd think to look. Thanks again.

Dave

You might find this article helpful. I'm sure you know much of the information but there are a few tips that might be useful. It's a few years old but I think all of the information is still applicable

Thanks again! Wish I'd seen this a while ago. Would have saved me some grief.

No problem. Glad you found it helpful. That magazine is no longer being published in the same format but there i a lot of good information in that archive.