Why does the primary monitor have (0,0) as its upper left coordinate?

By definition, the primary monitor is the monitor that has (0,0) as its upper left corner. Why can't the primary monitor be positioned somewhere else?

Well, sure you could do that, but then you'd have to invent a new name for the monitor whose upper left corner is at (0,0), and then you're back where you started.

In other words, it's just a name. You could ask, "Why can't starboard be on the left-hand side of the boat?" Well, sure you could do that, but then you'd have to come up with a new name for the right-hand side of the boat, and then things are pretty much the same as they were, just with different names.

Perhaps a more descriptive (but clumsier) name for the primary monitor would be the backward-compatibility monitor (for applications which do not support multiple monitors), because that's what the primary monitor is. If an application is not multiple-monitor aware, then any time it asks for properties of "the" monitor, it gets information about the backward-compatibility monitor. A call to GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSCREEN) gives the width of the backward-compatibility monitor, GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYMAXIMIZED) gives the height of a window maximized on the backward-compatibility monitor, and positioning a window at (0,0) puts it at the upper left corner of the backward-compatibility monitor.

The window manager still respects window coordinates passed to functions like CreateWindow or SetWindowPos. If you pass coordinates that are on a secondary monitor—oops—a monitor different from the backward-compatibility monitor, then the window manager will happily put the window there. These coordinates might be the result of a program that is multiple-monitor aware, or possibly merely from a program which is multiple-monitor agnostic.

Read more: The old new thing

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