I’ve been a virtual desktop user for a long time. I have Rails development on one, 37signals apps on another, communication on a third, feed reading and browsing on a third, and a few spares for clean-slate thinking.
These desktops all fall under the notion of task partitioning, not app partitioning. They all have Safari windows, many have TextMate windows and terminals too. Gruber has described the trouble with trying to fit this pattern on Spaces in the past.
But it seems that all you need to have bliss is two things: The latest version of TextMate (1455), which forces the Find windows to appear on the current desktop instead of the last on they were used on.
And then this neat hack from Mac OS X Hints that let’s you turn off the default Spaces behavior of switching desktops when you select an application that doesn’t have a window on the current. Which is mighty annoying when you want a Safari window on your communication desktop, but are forced to either right-click the dock for one or go to the programming desktop, click new, and then drag the window down to communications.
Between these two fixes, I’m now a content Spaces users and no longer wish for a Leopard port of the good old DesktopManager.
Jonathan LaCour
on 18 Feb 08I am with you David. The moment I discovered the hack on Mac OS Hints, I jumped for joy. For years, I used virtual desktops on Linux and *BSD as my primary desktop, until I switched to OS X early on in its lifecycle. I then used “DesktopManager” and “Virtue Desktops” until Leopard, and have been suffering through Spaces until this hint.
Its almost perfect now. The only thing I wish for is a way to turn on the old behavior of jumping to the Space where an application lives by holding down a modifier key while clicking on the app in the dock. Bonus points if repeatedly clicking on the icon with the modifier key cycles through all Spaces where the app has open windows.
Ah. Sweet task-separating bliss.
Lee McFadden
on 18 Feb 08That is so helpful. I’d all but given up on Spaces for this very reason but this has solved all my woes :)
Thanks for the tip.
Jared
on 18 Feb 08Am I the only one who doesn’t find multiple desktops useful? I am perfectly happy Expose’ing (or Command + Tab) between windows and apps. I had Spaces turned on for about a month after I first started using Leopard only to turn it off because it never got used.
Justin
on 18 Feb 08@Jared
I think the big problem for me with exposé or cmd-tab is your windows are stacked in order of last used. This pretty much guarentees that if you need another window, that you’ll have to exposé again (unless it’s a small window that didn’t get covered up).
With Spaces (and this hack) I can separate out tasks that require several windows working together, and to change into that context I just change a space and I won’t have to exposé nearly as much once I’m in that task.
I used to prefer the method you describe though, before I got sick of having to always cmd+tab.
Ryan
on 18 Feb 08I stopped using Spaces for a while because it pretty much messes up my workflow. Like most of you, I want to put different tasks or projects on each space – including all the windows that relate to that task. So if I need to open up a new client for a quick 15-minute trip to their code base for a support request, I want to pop open an empty new space and start working as if I had just logged in. It just doesn’t work that way with spaces.
This hack works pretty good, but it’s still not all there. Like Justin mentioned, when you command-tab to an open app, sometimes the app’s windows just won’t come up, and you have to exposé them to get back to your window. Apple really needs to refine their window handling to work better with this kind of task switching. I suspect that this is why they have hidden the “switch spaces automatically” option – they’re probably in just-ship-it mode and better window handling would have caused a delay. For now, it probably works for 80% of people who use spaces. It’s us 20% who are suffering.
Mr K
on 18 Feb 08Hmm, I’m going to have to investigate this a little more. What you say certainly holds promise. However I have another concern and that is that of CPU/RAM usage
I have a MacBook Pro (2.33Ghz Core 2 Duo) running 2Gb ram. With spaces turned on the fans in my laptop go ballistic as she really seems to heat up. This is the reason I’ve not really looked at Spaces seriously. All I run is Mail, Things, iTunes, TextMate, Flock, Skype and occasionally OpenOffice, iWork, Pixelmator or Flash – oh in the background of course I have Apache & mySQL server running
I’ll turn spaces back on .. but I”m not hoping for much
Fred
on 18 Feb 08Am I missing something though? You are still limited to TextMate being only in one space? I drag one window to a space and all the other’s follow! What I would really like to do when doing division by tasks is to have 1 space with TextMate with one project and another space with TextMate with a different project. Is that sorta thing possible?
Jan
on 18 Feb 08Unfortunately, Spaces does not work, at least for me, properly with cmd-tab application switching. I too hoped to see it fixed in 10.5.2 but it took around a minute to find it still broken. It appears that cmd-tab will still activate the latest used window of an app, even if it is on another Space. cmd-tabbing thus results in two inactive windows on your current Space. Additionally, the window you want in front, vanishes behind all other windows when you try to cmd-tab to it if there is another window of that app in another space.
Ryan
on 18 Feb 08Bah! That guy should have kept developing Virtue Desktops! Apple needs a little competition.
cornexo
on 18 Feb 08How do lesser gods get access to TextMate 1455? All I can get is 1436.
Shane
on 18 Feb 08@cornexo : under software update in TextMate preferences, there is the option to select ‘Watch For’ ... select Cutting-Edge
sbhebert
on 18 Feb 08@Shane - Thanks so much - I’ve used TextMate for a while and had never gone back to look at the “Software Update” prefs after my initial install (when I set it to “Minor Updates”)...I was huntin’ around for the latest build for 10 or 15 minutes.
Good hint/tip/trick. Maybe I’ll try Spaces again.
Yossef
on 19 Feb 08Holy crap, I’ve been wanting this for as long as I’ve been using Leopard. It was a great day when I discovered that VirtueDesktops didn’t work (obviously) and Spaces was going to drive me nuts. I searched for something like this for a while, but gave up and learned to grab a window and switch to the space I wanted it to be in.
@Fred: I think that’s what you’re going to have to do. That’s what works for me when moving the windows on the big Spaces “look how cool we are” view didn’t.
Harry
on 19 Feb 08For thoose of us with case-sensitive filesystem it is
That hint spells ‘dock’ as ‘Dock’, which will not work.Great tip anyways, I never used Spaces for exact same reason.
Daniel
on 19 Feb 08well, thanks for the tip, but as long as cmd-tabbing doesn’t work (inactive windows is annoying) i’ll have to hold off on Spaces.
Does cmd-tabbing work for some? Because I can’t see anyone work fluidly with Spaces unless they’re not used to cmd-tabbing.
MikeInAZ
on 20 Feb 08@Daniel
Check out Witch, which lets you select a specific window (if you have multiple windows open for an app). I set it too option+tab and I can switch to the window I want. It’ll also let you access a window that has been minimized.
Eugene
on 20 Feb 08Thanks David, that was Really helpful!
I’ve got the best results after removing some applications assignment in Spaces preference pane.
Now if only one could turn of the switching animation…
Matt
on 21 Feb 08@Harry
Ah-ha! Great tip. I thought I was going insane.
Speaking of. I just tried yesterday to install CS3. Harry, you wouldn’t know a work-around for getting CS3 on to a case-sensitive filesystem?
Thanks.
Tony Crockford
on 21 Feb 08Well I tried the hack, I tried to have a space per task and it does work in that respect, the only issue I have is that if I click a link in mail in my ‘reading mail space’ then Safari opens it in its last active window (which might have been my web site testing space) and I have to go hunting for it.
I also had a few times where I opened an application from the dock and it opened in a different space (not because it was assigned to it, no idea why, maybe the last space it opened in?), or opened hidden…
I’ve reverted to the default behaviour, I like the jump to window action better than I like the spaces for tasks..
I’d like task separation and I’d like clicked links in email to stay in the space I’m in – any suggestions for how I might set that up?
This discussion is closed.