[Scarpa]

I was initially pretty excited about using the new Spaces feature in Leopard, but after playing with it I'm not so sure.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on some of these points (I hope I am).

What I expected:
- Each space has separate instances or at least windows of an application
- You can move an open application window between spaces
- You can have separate deskop backgrounds and icons for each space

As far as I can tell none of the above functionality exists. I tried to set it so one app always opens in a specific space, but what happens is that when I load that app existing "global" apps get pulled into the new space with the newly opened app. For instance I had a safari window open for "personal" use, and wanted to open Remote Desktop Connection in my "work" space. When I opened the RDP client the Finder windows were left behind but the safari window followed into the new space.

As it exists now the feature seems very limited and not all that useful. Is someone using it and loving it that can give me a different perspective, maybe I'm just looking at the feature wrong?

[peeb]

Doesn't 'global' mean that the app will be pulled into every current space?

[Scarpa]

Apparently. I interpreted it to mean it was available in every space.

What I want is to separate windows from a single app into multiple spaces. I guess that's not possible.

[peeb]

Can't you not make the app global, and open a separate window in each space?

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Scarpa 

You can move an open application window between spaces

This is correct. You can either grab the window's title bar and hit a shortcut to switch spaces or you can hit F8 to "Exposé" your spaces and drag windows between them.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Scarpa 

- Each space has separate instances or at least windows of an application

Huh? You want windows replicated in each space? That wouldn't make any sense.

[peeb]

You might want that with a browser, different windows open in each space.

[MartiNZ]

Gahh my reply just got eaten by "server is busy" - second time since Leopard's coming ... at least I can believe it .

Anyway... someone at AI I think it was suggested having a Safari space and then using Exposé instead of tabs to preview windows visually. It seems sensible while there is no image preview built-in - even now with the fact that dragging a tab to a new window shows such an image. It wouldn't hurt if mouse rollover did the same or there was a Safari Exposé feature like I think Shiira started.

You can also drag windows to new spaces by dragging them off the screen in the appropriate direction - annoying if, like me, you've been used to keeping windows tidily arranged for the last six years of OS X, including some hard against the left/right of the display. With this I have also had some windows migrate on their own. View options in Finder decided the far left of my main space was boring and went off to explore the next one along, for instance.

[Scarpa]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Huh? You want windows replicated in each space? That wouldn't make any sense.

No, not replicated, I want different windows from the same application in different spaces.

For instance, I would like a Safari window with "personal" web pages such as this forum, gmail, etc in one space, and then have a different window with "work" web pages in another space.

I guess I just need to play with it some more and find out just how the feature works instead of trying to fit it into my preconceived assumptions about how I think it *should* work.

[Big Mac]

As others have said, you can place them in separate spaces, but having that occur by default would never work.

[cybergoober]

You can move windows between spaces by invoking Spaces (F8 by default) and dragging windows from space to space. You can also move windows between spaces by dragging the window to the edge of the screen and holding it there a few seconds.

[Scarpa]

Ok so it sounds like it does what I assumed.

My problem I guess was that I had a window open in the first space, then switched to the second space and invoked Safari to launch a new window. As soon as I clicked on the Safari icon on the dock the existing window from the first space showed up.

I guess you have to create all the windows at first, and then move them to wherever you want them to go. That's a bit more of a hassle but I should still be able to get a nice work/play separation going.

Thanks for the insights.. I'm a recent returnee to the Mac OS realm and I always have a little bit of an adjustment period where I have to stop thinking like a windows IT guy and start thinking like a normal user. I tolerate way too much crap at my day job.