Vertical Sidecar

[roelvangils]

I am looking for step-by-step instructions on how to use my iPad Pro 12" in portrait mode with Sidecar as I don't really understand how that is done.

[waydabber]

Hi,

you should:

• enable Sidecar
• create a dummy fit for your iPad
• change it to portrait mode
• start streaming (not mirroring) the dummy to your iPad's screen
• rotate the stream by 90 degrees

That should do it (I think). :)

[medd2829]

what the application to show this menu bar? i dont know to show this dropdown menu,.

[abulujayn]

@medd2829 it's better display, the app that this is the repo of

[medd2829]

@zp4rker where the button can i click to show this dropdown like in the image?

[waydabber]

Hi @medd2829 - it should be in the menu, you should see a chevron icon with which you can expand the menu to show additional options.

[ernestchu]

#579 (reply in thread)

Hi @waydabber, is there a way to completely disable the Sidecar screen? Sometimes, application windows sneak into that screen, and it's not easy to handle when they hide in the invisible screen.

[waydabber]

I hope this worked, let me know if not! I'll convert this into a discussion.

[waydabber]

Your setup looks professional. :)

[Garabed96]

M1 Pro chip w/ 2018 Ipad Pro 11" this did not work.

[waydabber]

Should work though with this setup. Do you have any screenshots maybe of the app menu to check if everything is configured ok?

[Garabed96]

I wasn't able to get the application to target my ipad as a Dummy, everytime I selected Ipad Dummy it made a copy of my mac screen instead. Is there a youtube guide on this setup?

[waydabber]

I see. Sometimes this happens, there is a bug in the macOS screen capture API, they mix up displays sometimes if a virtual screen is involved (as it has a changing ID). So if you have a dummy connected and start a PIP window or enable full screen stream and see a different display's image in it, then you need to restart the app (or sometimes macOS) to make things right again - the API won't recover from this bad state.

[n-hiraha]

Cannot output iPad 12.9 in portrait mode

This is my current state

Can you give us some details?

[n-hiraha]

I tried and found out how to do it.

It worked on ipadpro11 but not on ipadpro12.9.

[waydabber]

Based on the screenshot above, it seems like you are streaming the sidecar display to the dummy, while it should be done the other way around.

[RSSDaveCanatsey]

I tried this with M1 macbook air and iPad air 5th Gen and I get a black screen on the iPad.

[mcx808]

@waydabber I've been at this for 15 minutes now to no avail. Is there some concise documentation on the process?

To stream to an iPad 11 I tried:

• Enable Sidecar
• Create Dummy display 199:139
• Stream dummy display to Sidecard
• Rotate stream 90 degrees.

But all I get on the iPad is either a black screen with my cursors mirrored like a prism, or a portrait screen layout, displayed in landscape mode.

Any ideas?

[waydabber]

Hmm. The streaming setup seems all right to me. Can you make a photo of how the result looks like?

If you show the dummy in a Picutre in Picture window, does it look right and portrait oriented?

[mcx808]

I went to re-test to take a photo and it actually works now.
Maybe because I had quit BetterDisplay after posting, but I did already try an app restart before.
I'll continue with my evaluation and let you know if the original problem reoccurs at all.

Thanks!

[waydabber]

All right, thanks for reporting back! :) Let me know if you have any further issues!

[duhd1993]

Looks like I'm having the same exact problem. Restarting mac solves the problem till it fails agin after some time. In the PIP mode, it's a portrait window display a landscape "display" in the center. I will take a photo when it comes back and post in issues.

[abulujayn]

the proposed solution worked for me although with one caveat and just wanted to confirm if that’s the case for everyone or there’s an issue with my setup, my steps are:

• connect sidecar
• create dummy of ipad size
• set dummy to portrait mode
• stream dummy to ipad
• lock rotation of ipados in landscape mode
• rotate ipad into portrait (physically, while still locked to landscape)
• success

is there a way to get it working without the rotation lock?

[duhd1993]

It used to be working. Suddenly stopped working for me today. Streaming to iPad leads to a black screen on iPad.

[bchuertas]

I've been at this for well over an hour and I cannot get it to work.
I'm on a 14" M2 MacbooPro with a 9th Generation iPad (4:3, 2160x1620).

When I enable streaming the screen is black. But something else super weird is that just creating a dummy seems to stream my iPad to the dummy even if the streaming is disabled. Is there a way to fully reset the app to try again?

I tried deleting the preferences and cache but didn't make any difference.

[duhd1993]

Restart your mac is the only way

[AJK-Muc]

I got my iPad running vertically as virtual screen in my little „3 display setup“ - thanks to this fine manual - so far so good - thank you very much 👍 (Foto: iPad 10.2" (vertical) + MBA M1 13.3" + USB-C Monitor 13,3")

What I don't like is that the physical iPad is still accessible as a „4th display“ in its original SideCar (horizontal) mode when I move my „mouse“ (touchpad) over the right border of the 3rd screen. This is of course way much better than not having the function to rotate SideCar (hello Apple, wtf?), but also confusing (rotated ghost mouse pointer on the „4th display“ overlay).

Is there any way to get rid of this (using only the 3 visible displays)?

I would like to have the right border of the 3rd display as the border for the mouse movement – no mouse movement outside of the visible 3 displays. (Screenshot from: System Settings > Displays > Arrange)

macOS Sonoma 14.2 · BetterDisplay 2.1.3

[waydabber]

Hi there - sadly right now it is not possible. What you can do is to move the fourth display to a place in the display layout where the mouse does not wander over easily (a corner of an other display for example). This is a workaround and not a proper solution though.

[filipef101]

Any chance we get clicking pass through (from apple pencil)?

[waydabber]

Sorry, no progress on that front.

[geraldorigins]

Hi. I'm still on trial and still testing this out. My primary use case for the app is to use my iPad's Sidecar in portrait mode. Used to work last week but haven't used it since. But now that my KUXIU stand has arrived and I can actually use the iPad in portrait mode, it shows the virtual portrait display sideways with black bars above and below it. See attached screenshots for reference. Hope you can help me out. Thanks

PS. Both my MacBook and iPad are on the latest developer betas (Sequoia and iPadOS 18)

[waydabber]

Things seem to be set up all right. The only thing that's weird is that the Continuity app seems to be running in portrait mode (see the bar at the bottom) on your iPad even though it's a Landscape-only app even in iPadOS 18. This sometimes happens as the app is rather buggy. Try to kill it and start it again.

[geraldorigins]

That's a good catch. Earlier, I tried restarting both Mac and iPad to no avail. Ended up deleting the virtual screen and just using it in landscape. Tried it once more just now and it's working as intended. Will definitely watch out for the bottom bar next time around. Thanks man

[BuildBackBuehler]

I've gotten it to work basically. Right now getting an aspect ratio that is HiDPI/not absurdly small or large/looks good is my only issue.

My settings are as follows...

Right now I am using wi-fi/bluetooth for Sidecar, so that may be the real culprit I'm realizing as I write this. But my MBP seemingly can't keep up with my power hungry iPad Pro 12.9" (5th gen) lol....though I also didn't have my MBP charging, whoops.

It looks pretty good here but of course, required to go to 2048x2732 so I gotta zoom in on everything/anything. Works well enough for me, though!

One thing people have neglected to mention that is seemingly crucial is that you need to make sure the arrangement of screens is OK. I can't say for certain what arrangement is needed, but in my case, until I had moved the virtual screen left of my main display (MBP), with my iPad on the right, it was only enabling me to do what yours was pictured doing. My virtual screen had been the right-most display. May play around with that some more. I suppose I had just anticipated that the virtual screen would overlay the iPad's instance, but it does not. The iPad instance still exists so I was confuzzled as to why I couldn't do anything when I moused over to the iPad instance (and its mouse orientation was as-if it were landscape). Not the easiest phenomena to describe but hopefully that makes sense to some 😂

[BuildBackBuehler]

Ah okay, well, wish I had just taken the leap of faith and recreated my virtual display. It's perfection now! I'm apparently too cynical for my own good, esp. considering I could've just looked it up on the interwebs. Figured the stats don't lie w/ 1366x1024 stream on the iPad that the 1.33 aspect ratio was what my iPad Pro 12.9" was. But, this time around went with the flexible reso., iPad 4:3. Before I went with the associated display + custom aspect ratio option.

And rather than the convoluted arrangement issue I mentioned, it seems BetterDisplay is at its best when you let it take care of all the settings which is surprising to me! I just went into "Move Display", put the virtual screen to the right of my built-in and that was that. Still has that weird rotation @ the edge issue, but I wouldn't be surprised if I arrange the iPad's screen to be elsewhere, that it'd go away.

[cleverdevil]

I have been trying to get this to work for like a half hour without success. This seems like a great use case for Better Display that would warrant a built-in feature that handles all of the under-the-hood details with a single click. I paid for "Pro" about an hour ago so I could use my iPad Pro 12.9" in portrait mode as an extended display, and the steps to get it working are very confusing, as the UX has changed quite a bit from the earlier screenshots.

A knowledge base article with very explicit step-by-step instructions with screenshots, or even better a YouTube video, would be very helpful in the meantime.

[waydabber]

Hi there,

yeah, this discussion is super outdated. Here is what you should follow:

https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/wiki/Rotated-Sidecar

[cleverdevil]

Thanks for pointing me to the right spot! I can’t believe I didn’t find it on my own. Re-reading my first response and realizing what I intended to be constructive feedback may have come across the wrong way.

The app is indispensable for my workflow and I’m super happy it exists. Looking forward to going through the guide when I’m back at my desk! Appreciate the reply.

[FoxMcWeezer]

I just want to say it's an absolute joke that Sidecar app that appears on the iPad when you Sidecar, despite not supporting portrait, still rotates into portrait when you have the iPad in portrait, thus cutting off the display. Why not just lock the service into landscape? That way I can still use my iPad in portrait without having to unlock and lock its orientation every time.

[FoxMcWeezer]

copy_93382570-5FF9-4F77-ADA9-E0DE2EF68C27.MOV

Hi @waydabber , Do you know of an easy way within BetterDisplay settings to get around this iPad OS/Sidecar orientation limitation? If I want to use my iPad, I need to disable the landscape lock. Then when I want to use Sidecar portrait again, I have to physically pick up and rotate my iPad back to landscape, lock it again. In the ideal scenario, I could leave my iPad orientation unlocked and Portrait Sidecar and normal iPad usage work fine

[waydabber]

Interestingly the Sidecar app sometimes sticks to landscape - you might need to kill the Sidecar app on the iPad first and make sure it is launched in Landscape at first. Sometimes this fixes the issue. It's strange that Apple could not fix this over many iOS versions.