Any possible way to have tool panel(s) on different monitor than that which shows results?

Question

All,
I believe the answer is no but it's worth asking.
I have a "good" and a "old-but serviceable" monitor, both 1920 x 1200 and driven by a AMD FirePro 4900 GPU. "Good" means a new color-managed, wider-gamut, Asus PA246. "Old..." means TN-tech Gateway-branded unit bought in 2008. If I make the ASUS the primary monitor under Win7 64-bit I get to see the results of color shifts and contrast decisions in Lightroom, DxO, whatever. I have been looking at these post-processing changes on the Asus wider-gamut display by turning on the "Secondary Monitor" choice. But it's like a tennis match: my head goes back and forth many times a second, because the tool is so far from the better rendered image. Yes, they are set side-by-side on my desk, both horizontal. (I did like the portrait orientation for the tools display(Gateway TN), as it is great for productivity outside of Lightroom.)
I also use a WACOM Intuos5, but I think that does not add anything here. That has its own neck-killing useability issues (...but I like the tool.)
So I believe we do NOT haven access to any kind of tear-away tool palettes. right?
jonathan7007

Answer 1

I do see how you might want to move tool panels to a different screen, for the best view of your picture - but at the same time, I don't see how you can comfortably do so all the time, because this means bouncing your attention from one screen to the other - the critical editing involves both the image and the sliders together. That was why I suggested keeping Grid view available: it's rather a distinct mode of working in any case. Many things you do there can be done off keystrokes, using icon badges, right-click context menus and so on. I suspect every single LR user has a unique combination of things they like to do with keystrokes, vs things they like to do with the mouse. We work best when the tools are comfortable to us, IMO.
So Tab and Shift+Tab give you instant room to work on your primary (or single) screen, but - importantly - without breaking the chain of thought. My hesitation about jumping the interface back and forth between screens, is that we shouldn't be really thinking much about the interface, we should have our attention on the pictures.
Using loupe info overlay can remove some need to refer to metadata panels, also there's a handy little info summary under the histogram. Once you have some view filter presets saved, some export presets saved, recently accessed collections in the list, and so on... the need to constantly go out of and back to the Develop-window-plus-filmstrip does reduce. Thumbnail badges are great - clicking them takes you to the control involved, and you can manage stacking etc nicely that way.