Ever since I switched from Ubuntu to OSX I've been missing how simple and useable Virtual Desktops are.
I used them all the time in Ubuntu, and I had a keyboard shortcut to move the currently active window to any adjacent virtual desktop (with loop around).
This was great when a context switch happened in a virtual desktop dedicated to project A. I would just realize I need to do this on a separate desktop, and use my shortcuts to fling to an empty one.
On OSX this involves clicking, dragging and aiming at the correct space, which completely stopped me from using spaces at all. I tried dedicated spaces for certain applications, but found that to be annoying when I want to run one of those apps in the context of my current space.
I was kinda hoping Lion would improve on this, but sadly it seems they went the opposite direction.
Seriously, I too came from linux (ubuntu even) to osx having last owned a mac when it had a whopping 128k memory.
I heard someone say on a podcast recently that when Apple Computer became Apple (jan-07), that's when they started leaving power users behind.
Anyhow, my Lion/MC/Spaces gripes are along these lines:
1. 1-D vs 2-D grids. This is terrible for me personally.
2. Animations. If I'm typing ctrl->right/left, it means I'd like to get there more quickly than my mouse allows. The (for me) nauseating animation is just painfully slow and sickening (literally).
3. I've read many people say, 'use ctrl-<desktop#>'. Well yea that's somewhat better and has a snappier animation (like ctrl-<arrow key> had with SL spaces) but I personally find this awkward. First, if I am going to go the trouble of that, I want to get to that desktop immediately so any animation seems silly. Second, it's still 1-D thinking. Having been able to ctrl-<arrow key> to my 3x3 grid in SL was a basic with my workflow.
Now I'm sure my mother will love Mission Control, and not tire of the eye candy animations, but for people working all day with them.... ugh!
I just don't understand why Apple can't bring it's stunning "Here's how to use a trackpad" gif-like spiffy animations to the System Preferences more broadly, and add more customization to the UI in general (like turn of animations!).
I know we're the 20% and not the 80% but it does suck, making me seriously consider going back to *nix now that I'm digging deeper into vim.
I use cmd + arrow key to switch spaces. If you grab a window you can bring it along with you to another space. It would be nice if there was an easy way to select multiple windows to do this with though.
Properly configured, the old Spaces was a passable replacement for virtual desktops, with some caveats.
I always had a 4-space, one-row layout. Wrap-around worked, but the animation was a bit confusing at first (it lets you move "right" past the last space, but the animation shows you moving three spaces to the left). I never used Spaces to move between spaces, keybindings and mouse gestures accomplished those. I only entered Spaces view when I wanted to move windows from one space to another.
If I had to use the mouse every time I wanted to change spaces, I'd stop using it too.
> On OSX this involves clicking, dragging and aiming
> at the correct space
No, it involves clicking, then holding ctrl and an arrow key to move in that arrow key's direction, or clicking then holding ctrl and hitting the number for your desired space.
So the only difference from what you describe on Ubuntu is that you have to click the window titlebar first.
At least this is how it worked in 10.6. Haven't tried 10.7 yet.
Agreed, spaces in OS X has always appeared half-baked to me. Coming from a GNU/Linux environment I found it surprising that it wasn't possible to send a window to a specific workspace using the keyboard only. I don't want to invoke the mouse for basic workspace usage
Well, as far as multiple displays is concerned MacOS UX has been broken since day one. It is absolute lunacy to have the menu bar for an application pinned to the first display while the application opens in a second or third display.
Our Macs have two or three 24 inch monitors, which makes you realize just how dumb the whole thing is. If you are working on an application on the left monitor and need to access a menu item you have to mouse all the way over to the middle monitor and then back. Do this 200 times a day and you very quickly realize just how stupid the whole thing is.
Furthermore, the menu bar might not necessarily contain menu items for the application you are looking at because you happen to have clicked on the desktop or another application.
Yes, of course, you can mentally manage the concept. That does not mean that it is a good idea.
Linux, Irix, Solaris, Windows and other OS GUIs have gotten this right from the very start. The application is a self contained window and every instance travels with its own controls. No need to mouse across 72 inches of monitors to get to a menu.
The menu bar is part of a hierarchy of application > window, rather than window = application instance. Because of this, the self-contained application window is a bitch to deal with when using different windows across different applications. I have to use Dreamweaver due a bunch of pre-written macros. I can't ever, ever, ever take a tab out of Dreamweaver and pair it with a specific preview firefox window (at least under Windows).
That's not to say that the Mac's window model is without fault. But, it is much easier to patch to one's liking: http://manytricks.com/witch/
If you are working on an application on the left monitor and need to access a menu item you have to mouse all the way over to the middle monitor and then back.
If you're using it more than 10 times a day you shoud make a custom keyboard shortcut using the "Keyboard" preference pane or one of those custom apps.
I find the menu bar a very interesting part of the Mac. It gives visual identification on which app has focus, it is mechanically easy to access (just throw your mouse arrow up, no aiming), doesn't pollute the document window. I learned to see it more as a "reference" point (what's the shortcut for doing that?) rather than something you should rely on.
This article is basically the statment, "I dislike change."
Truth be told, Spaces and multiple monitors (and in general, Applications w.r.t. spaces) has been terribly broken to the point of near-unusability for quite some time now. Apple's taken an easy fix for the time being: divorce spaces into N discrete sets where N is the number of displays.
This actually ends up working out for the way I see most people use multiple monitors with a mac. Since very few people have mac desktops, usually the multi-monitor situation is one large display and a smaller integrated laptop display. Most people do the bulk of their work on the big display and use the secondary display for tasks like communication and reference.
As far as I can tell, Lion's Mission Control is a radical improvement across the board for the actual usability of Spaces in the Apple model. The prior implementation naively copied the Linux multiple-desktop model before (with it's preference for MDI and application-local menu bars) to disastrous ends. This is the first step I've seen Apple take to actually try actually adapt multiple desktops to the Spaces model and the unified menubar model, and I prefer it greatly so far.
The default of LRU Spaces ordering, on the other hand, makes me scowl. I'm going to try it to see if I feel any better after a day or two of use, but I doubt I will end up happier.
I personally think Mission Control is pretty excellent, but then, I am running Lion on an Air without an external display. For that use case, Mission Control and the iOS-style features are both significantly more useful than I had any expectation of them being.
You can replace Mission Control with Expose via the preferences, although I'm not sure if it has inherited any of these changes the linked post complains about or if it is in fact the old Expose.
I never use spaces, it always seemed backwards to switch to a whole new context just because I want to access a single app. What if I want to look back at some code I was writing while I'm IM'ing someone? What if I don't want a whole context switch, and I just want to send a quick message? What if I don't care what space an app is in, obviating the need for all this crazy Mission Control complexity?
All I do it bind my most frequently used app to hot keys (Cmd-F1, Cmd-F2, etc.). When I want to use an app, I pop it open with Cmd-F#. When I want to close it, I hit Cmd-H to hide it.
If you mainly work at the granularity of single apps, I could see that. I tend to use groups of apps, so without spaces I waste way too much time re-assembling my working contexts. With spaces I can just swap in a whole context, like "programming": my text editor, a terminal, and a browser open to a relevant doc all pop up as a group, arranged how I want them. And stuff not in the "programming" context disappears instead of cluttering my screen.
If I have to do this app-at-a-time, I need to bring to the foreground Terminal, MacVim, and Chrome, each with a separate hotkey press, then hide everything else. I admit this working pattern may be specific to a Unix style of "IDE" made up from multiple apps used together, though. If you just use XCode or Eclipse or something, it's already bundled into one app so maybe not an issue.
How do you bind "switch to app X" to a hotkey? I'm in Keyboard Shortcuts, and I while I can see how to define shortcuts for app menu items and such, I don't see how to specify switching.
I agree with you on the context-switching issue in spaces- it seems counter-productive to have to switch to a separate space for email, terminal, whatever. I like being able to have all my apps in the same space (albeit on two physical displays), and Expose and Cmd-tab seem less disruptive to my workflow than Spaces.
I could never get into multiple virtual desktops either. No matter how carefully I arrange my windows into different spaces I always end up with a scenario where I need to re-arrange windows to fit whatever task I'm working on. Ends up being a huge waste of time for me. The only benefit I get from spaces is a clean looking desktop but "Hide Others" solves that problem fairly well.
It doesn't solve all the problems in this post, but if you are trying to find an open window I think it's the fastest way. Expose is chaos if you've got a lot of windows open.
With the OS X menuying system that sticks to one monitor, I've always found using multiple monitors awkward on the Mac. I've never had a good solution to this other than learn shortened for every app. But there isn't always a shortcut for what you want. Has any HN fellows ever found a good way to make multiple monitors more usable on the Mac?
Secondbar (I'm not sure about Lion compatibility): http://blog.boastr.net/?page_id=79
It puts another identical menubar on the second screen.
If you prefer a more "vanilla" option, I've found that putting the menubar on the right screen and the blank screen on the left reduces mouse travel (you can move the menu between monitors in Display Preferences). Since menu for an app is filled left to right, menu items are then closer to the center of your workspace.
Hm, if you don’t use Spaces (like me), Mission Control is, at least in my personal experience, just as competent as the old Exposé. I like that OS X no longer enforces a grid and that it proportionally resizes Windows (instead of making them all the same size).
I think I also like that windows of the same app are grouped together. One possible downside are the resulting overlapping windows, I think, though, it’s wroth the tradeoff.
I do not like that single app Exposé still forces apps on a grid and still forces them all to the same size. That said, I rarely use single app Exposé.
The new implementation of Spaces might actually be able to entice me to use them from time to time, so it seems like an improvement for me personally. The problems he is talking about are certainly serious and should be fixed.
I personally only use OS X on my laptop, and here's what I had before Lion:
1. 3x3 Spaces grid
2. Each major application assigned to a space. Primary editors (vim, Textmate, etc.) in space 5 (center), others surrounding it.
3. Each application typically maximized to fill its space.
4. When I need to switch applications, command-tab between them.
This gave me each application with almost a full screen of space, isolated to itself, with little cognitive overhead. I don't need more than command-tab at this point to manage my workflow.
I installed Lion today. Now, I have a linear set of spaces, but some of the applications I was giving full-screen to can actually use the whole screen. Mail is one of them. Chrome's support is a bit buggy so I'm avoiding it for now.
I still command-tab between applications, and that works fine, giving me all the space I had before. It seems to me that Lion's replacement for spaces was designed for me: someone who assigns one space per major application and likes to have those applications full-screened. I can 4-finger swipe left/right between the spaces (I had to set 3-fingers for page swiping so I could keep using the trackpad for Chrome forward/back). That means I can't use 4-finger-swipe to pull up the command-tab switcher, but 3-finger-swipe-up brings up MC, which is close enough, now.
Just food for thought. If I had to deal with the multiple-screen issues OP mentioned, I'd probably go nuts, but I've only used a customized Ubuntu for such situations long-term. As a laptop user, MC seems designed for me almost to the T.
In snow leopard there used to be an option that forced Exposé's "Application Windows" shortcut to show only the active windows of an application's on the present desktop.
I can't find this option in Lion, and I desperately miss it.
Say I have two workspaces each with four terminal windows (each set of terminals connecting to a specific server) and a third workspace with one terminal window sitting around. Pressing the "Application windows" shortcut now shows me all nine windows, and just to add to the confusion OS X Lion switches away from the present workspace to the workspace most recently used!
In my view it contradicts the very purpose of "Spaces" since a workspace is used to unclutter all the active apps and windows.
Spaces in prev OS X was almost terrible, it was just half-baked. I think they brought this feature to Lion with some nice tunes, but not sure they did great on showing multiple spaces on the top of Mission Control.
Plus, Mission control itself doesn't really make user focusing on each window(app). even if we don't care about multiple displays environment, Apple did some good, and some wrong.
Shouldn't this be solved by automatic saving apps' settings? In Lion, shouldn't I be supposed to put an application somewhere and it will stay there even after I quit it? I've installed Lion but had no time to play with it, will try this when I get home.
This really speaks of Hacker New's segment. For non-techies it's perfect - yes, multi monitor support is corrupt, but I'm sure it'll come by in couple of months. The important thing is that working with fullscreen apps via mission contra doesn't feel like IQ puzzles.
[+] [-] div|14 years ago|reply
I used them all the time in Ubuntu, and I had a keyboard shortcut to move the currently active window to any adjacent virtual desktop (with loop around).
This was great when a context switch happened in a virtual desktop dedicated to project A. I would just realize I need to do this on a separate desktop, and use my shortcuts to fling to an empty one.
On OSX this involves clicking, dragging and aiming at the correct space, which completely stopped me from using spaces at all. I tried dedicated spaces for certain applications, but found that to be annoying when I want to run one of those apps in the context of my current space.
I was kinda hoping Lion would improve on this, but sadly it seems they went the opposite direction.
[+] [-] neanderdog|14 years ago|reply
Well that's how I feel :)
Seriously, I too came from linux (ubuntu even) to osx having last owned a mac when it had a whopping 128k memory.
I heard someone say on a podcast recently that when Apple Computer became Apple (jan-07), that's when they started leaving power users behind.
Anyhow, my Lion/MC/Spaces gripes are along these lines:
1. 1-D vs 2-D grids. This is terrible for me personally.
2. Animations. If I'm typing ctrl->right/left, it means I'd like to get there more quickly than my mouse allows. The (for me) nauseating animation is just painfully slow and sickening (literally).
3. I've read many people say, 'use ctrl-<desktop#>'. Well yea that's somewhat better and has a snappier animation (like ctrl-<arrow key> had with SL spaces) but I personally find this awkward. First, if I am going to go the trouble of that, I want to get to that desktop immediately so any animation seems silly. Second, it's still 1-D thinking. Having been able to ctrl-<arrow key> to my 3x3 grid in SL was a basic with my workflow.
Now I'm sure my mother will love Mission Control, and not tire of the eye candy animations, but for people working all day with them.... ugh!
I just don't understand why Apple can't bring it's stunning "Here's how to use a trackpad" gif-like spiffy animations to the System Preferences more broadly, and add more customization to the UI in general (like turn of animations!).
I know we're the 20% and not the 80% but it does suck, making me seriously consider going back to *nix now that I'm digging deeper into vim.
[+] [-] tom9729|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] idan|14 years ago|reply
I always had a 4-space, one-row layout. Wrap-around worked, but the animation was a bit confusing at first (it lets you move "right" past the last space, but the animation shows you moving three spaces to the left). I never used Spaces to move between spaces, keybindings and mouse gestures accomplished those. I only entered Spaces view when I wanted to move windows from one space to another.
If I had to use the mouse every time I wanted to change spaces, I'd stop using it too.
[+] [-] bzbarsky|14 years ago|reply
No, it involves clicking, then holding ctrl and an arrow key to move in that arrow key's direction, or clicking then holding ctrl and hitting the number for your desired space.
So the only difference from what you describe on Ubuntu is that you have to click the window titlebar first.
At least this is how it worked in 10.6. Haven't tried 10.7 yet.
[+] [-] cks|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] X-Istence|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] algoshift|14 years ago|reply
Our Macs have two or three 24 inch monitors, which makes you realize just how dumb the whole thing is. If you are working on an application on the left monitor and need to access a menu item you have to mouse all the way over to the middle monitor and then back. Do this 200 times a day and you very quickly realize just how stupid the whole thing is.
Furthermore, the menu bar might not necessarily contain menu items for the application you are looking at because you happen to have clicked on the desktop or another application.
Yes, of course, you can mentally manage the concept. That does not mean that it is a good idea.
Linux, Irix, Solaris, Windows and other OS GUIs have gotten this right from the very start. The application is a self contained window and every instance travels with its own controls. No need to mouse across 72 inches of monitors to get to a menu.
[+] [-] sudont|14 years ago|reply
The menu bar is part of a hierarchy of application > window, rather than window = application instance. Because of this, the self-contained application window is a bitch to deal with when using different windows across different applications. I have to use Dreamweaver due a bunch of pre-written macros. I can't ever, ever, ever take a tab out of Dreamweaver and pair it with a specific preview firefox window (at least under Windows).
That's not to say that the Mac's window model is without fault. But, it is much easier to patch to one's liking: http://manytricks.com/witch/
[+] [-] glassx|14 years ago|reply
If you're using it more than 10 times a day you shoud make a custom keyboard shortcut using the "Keyboard" preference pane or one of those custom apps.
I find the menu bar a very interesting part of the Mac. It gives visual identification on which app has focus, it is mechanically easy to access (just throw your mouse arrow up, no aiming), doesn't pollute the document window. I learned to see it more as a "reference" point (what's the shortcut for doing that?) rather than something you should rely on.
[+] [-] KirinDave|14 years ago|reply
Truth be told, Spaces and multiple monitors (and in general, Applications w.r.t. spaces) has been terribly broken to the point of near-unusability for quite some time now. Apple's taken an easy fix for the time being: divorce spaces into N discrete sets where N is the number of displays.
This actually ends up working out for the way I see most people use multiple monitors with a mac. Since very few people have mac desktops, usually the multi-monitor situation is one large display and a smaller integrated laptop display. Most people do the bulk of their work on the big display and use the secondary display for tasks like communication and reference.
As far as I can tell, Lion's Mission Control is a radical improvement across the board for the actual usability of Spaces in the Apple model. The prior implementation naively copied the Linux multiple-desktop model before (with it's preference for MDI and application-local menu bars) to disastrous ends. This is the first step I've seen Apple take to actually try actually adapt multiple desktops to the Spaces model and the unified menubar model, and I prefer it greatly so far.
The default of LRU Spaces ordering, on the other hand, makes me scowl. I'm going to try it to see if I feel any better after a day or two of use, but I doubt I will end up happier.
[+] [-] smhinsey|14 years ago|reply
You can replace Mission Control with Expose via the preferences, although I'm not sure if it has inherited any of these changes the linked post complains about or if it is in fact the old Expose.
[+] [-] idan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlongster|14 years ago|reply
All I do it bind my most frequently used app to hot keys (Cmd-F1, Cmd-F2, etc.). When I want to use an app, I pop it open with Cmd-F#. When I want to close it, I hit Cmd-H to hide it.
[+] [-] _delirium|14 years ago|reply
If I have to do this app-at-a-time, I need to bring to the foreground Terminal, MacVim, and Chrome, each with a separate hotkey press, then hide everything else. I admit this working pattern may be specific to a Unix style of "IDE" made up from multiple apps used together, though. If you just use XCode or Eclipse or something, it's already bundled into one app so maybe not an issue.
[+] [-] kaffeinecoma|14 years ago|reply
I agree with you on the context-switching issue in spaces- it seems counter-productive to have to switch to a separate space for email, terminal, whatever. I like being able to have all my apps in the same space (albeit on two physical displays), and Expose and Cmd-tab seem less disruptive to my workflow than Spaces.
[+] [-] jsz0|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blownd|14 years ago|reply
It doesn't solve all the problems in this post, but if you are trying to find an open window I think it's the fastest way. Expose is chaos if you've got a lot of windows open.
[+] [-] jeromeparadis|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evilduck|14 years ago|reply
If you prefer a more "vanilla" option, I've found that putting the menubar on the right screen and the blank screen on the left reduces mouse travel (you can move the menu between monitors in Display Preferences). Since menu for an app is filled left to right, menu items are then closer to the center of your workspace.
[+] [-] ugh|14 years ago|reply
I think I also like that windows of the same app are grouped together. One possible downside are the resulting overlapping windows, I think, though, it’s wroth the tradeoff.
I do not like that single app Exposé still forces apps on a grid and still forces them all to the same size. That said, I rarely use single app Exposé.
The new implementation of Spaces might actually be able to entice me to use them from time to time, so it seems like an improvement for me personally. The problems he is talking about are certainly serious and should be fixed.
[+] [-] idan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carbonica|14 years ago|reply
1. 3x3 Spaces grid 2. Each major application assigned to a space. Primary editors (vim, Textmate, etc.) in space 5 (center), others surrounding it. 3. Each application typically maximized to fill its space. 4. When I need to switch applications, command-tab between them.
This gave me each application with almost a full screen of space, isolated to itself, with little cognitive overhead. I don't need more than command-tab at this point to manage my workflow.
I installed Lion today. Now, I have a linear set of spaces, but some of the applications I was giving full-screen to can actually use the whole screen. Mail is one of them. Chrome's support is a bit buggy so I'm avoiding it for now.
I still command-tab between applications, and that works fine, giving me all the space I had before. It seems to me that Lion's replacement for spaces was designed for me: someone who assigns one space per major application and likes to have those applications full-screened. I can 4-finger swipe left/right between the spaces (I had to set 3-fingers for page swiping so I could keep using the trackpad for Chrome forward/back). That means I can't use 4-finger-swipe to pull up the command-tab switcher, but 3-finger-swipe-up brings up MC, which is close enough, now.
Just food for thought. If I had to deal with the multiple-screen issues OP mentioned, I'd probably go nuts, but I've only used a customized Ubuntu for such situations long-term. As a laptop user, MC seems designed for me almost to the T.
[+] [-] frederik|14 years ago|reply
I can't find this option in Lion, and I desperately miss it.
Say I have two workspaces each with four terminal windows (each set of terminals connecting to a specific server) and a third workspace with one terminal window sitting around. Pressing the "Application windows" shortcut now shows me all nine windows, and just to add to the confusion OS X Lion switches away from the present workspace to the workspace most recently used!
In my view it contradicts the very purpose of "Spaces" since a workspace is used to unclutter all the active apps and windows.
[+] [-] anothertodd|14 years ago|reply
Plus, Mission control itself doesn't really make user focusing on each window(app). even if we don't care about multiple displays environment, Apple did some good, and some wrong.
And I'm using this BIG cat right now.. :P
[+] [-] amatheus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knotty66|14 years ago|reply
I can't see any way of having a 2D array of virtual desktops any more, the only option I see is the 1D auto-expanding column of desktops. Anyone ?
[+] [-] teamonkey|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonknee|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enterneo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Deadsunrise|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 4J7z0Fgt63dTZbs|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bonch|14 years ago|reply
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