Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

concavelab · Oct 28, 2003, 07:08 PM

Got this off spymac, someone has discovered it.

If you type the following in the terminal, when u hide all to show desktop using expos� you will get a small window showing your hidden desktop...vey neat (similar to minimise in place although its you whole desktop rather than just a window)

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool false; killall Dock

I enjoyed this feature for a while until i unhooked my Ti from the 21 in screen and took it home. I found that, for some reason, the little square that is supposed to show my desktop is set off screen and not visible any more. Now when i hide to show desktop using expos� all windows just flow off the screen into the little box that is off the screen. I cant seem to find a way to get it back.

Does anyone have any ideas ?....I think it has something to do with the information that is store when u change 2nd monitors and OSX remebers it.

thanx.

::maroma:: · Oct 28, 2003, 07:17 PM

Not sure what you mean by that. Any screenshots?

00101001 · Oct 28, 2003, 07:18 PM

after you've enabled it, in ~/Library/Preferences/ is a file com.apple.dock.plist

open that up, do a search for the fields x-pos and y-pos... those are what you want to change.

concavelab · Oct 28, 2003, 07:26 PM

perfect !...it worked !....there was a '-' on x location so by taking it out, eg. 1220 instead of -1220 it worked.

thanx !!!

concavelab · Oct 28, 2003, 07:36 PM

Its a great feature although its a bit of a shame that its not application independent. What i mean is that it would be nice if you could hide the desktop and run a new app and the old deskop stays in place, doesnt change ....really more like multiple desktops. The way it is at the moment it only lets you run a new finder window before the whole hidden desktop collapses.

Bobby · Oct 28, 2003, 07:54 PM

Originally posted by concavelab:
Its a great feature although its a bit of a shame that its not application independent. What i mean is that it would be nice if you could hide the desktop and run a new app and the old deskop stays in place, doesnt change ....really more like multiple desktops. The way it is at the moment it only lets you run a new finder window before the whole hidden desktop collapses.

Expose had no application independent anything yet... I emailed the creator of DragThing 5, and said it would be nice to keep my drag thing docks from behaving like the rest of the window in Expose. He sent me a reply indicating he agreed with me, but that Apple has not currently implemented any method for Expose to differentiate between applications...

ZackS · Oct 28, 2003, 08:09 PM

This hidden feature is also off because it has a nasty habit of locking up the window manager. Oops!

concavelab · Oct 28, 2003, 08:14 PM

I guess another things that is a big minus to expos� is that currently some applications just dissapear on any of the expos� features...eg. Electric Image Universe or KDX. Is this due to the particular application ?..why is it that some apps work and some dont .....

It looks like expos� is in earlye stages of development but why when having minimise in place feature such a long time ago and current expos� apple could find middle ground....something in between ..

maybe ..

minimise in place the app (all windows of that app get minimised in one window on desktop)

minimise all current visible apps

minimise window.

concavelab · Oct 28, 2003, 08:20 PM

yep, i was wondering why my menus when opened werent clickable where they should be.

ooops.

nice feature though.....so much for that

Hi I'm Ben · Oct 29, 2003, 01:24 AM

screen shot anyone?

00101001 · Oct 29, 2003, 01:52 AM

here:

screenshot

machem · Oct 29, 2003, 03:41 AM

shift-F9 (10,11) is also kind of cool, especially to show new users.

chabig · Oct 29, 2003, 11:02 AM

This could be a sign of early work on a sytem-wide virtual desktop feature.

Chris

melman101 · Oct 29, 2003, 11:05 AM

How would one go about turning it off?

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool true; killall Dock

?

Don't want to make the change unless i know definitely how to go back

concavelab · Oct 29, 2003, 11:29 AM

yep, thats it.

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool true; killall Dock

eevyl · Oct 29, 2003, 11:29 AM

If you want to see it in action, I posted a motion screen capture at this thread

machem · Oct 29, 2003, 03:05 PM

I had trouble with this freezing my machine (mouse moves, but no input possible; hard reboot required).

10.3 1.25GHz PB 15", no "funny" apps running as far as I know....

concavelab · Nov 4, 2003, 05:55 PM

"Rumor has it that a future version of the Mac OS X operating system will improve on desktop management by allowing users to spawn virtual desktops, sources tell AppleInsider. The feature is highly rumored to appear as part of Apple's Expose�window management technology, which first debuted as part of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther a couple of weeks ago. "

from appleinsider.com

I hope this is not a 10.4 feature, e.g paid upgrade.

Common apple !!..

Dubloseven · Nov 18, 2003, 10:41 PM

im a retard when it comes to fixing this problem. apparently this hack is what is messing with my system, so could someone walk me through undoing it? i tried doing what it said in this thread, but i cant do it. thanks.

Dubloseven · Nov 19, 2003, 04:51 PM

anyone? i'm kind of confused and would love some help fixing this annoying problem

RooneyX · Nov 19, 2003, 04:57 PM

Originally posted by Dubloseven:
anyone? i'm kind of confused and would love some help fixing this annoying problem

Jus paste the following into Terminal and reboot, then fix permissions and reboot again:

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool true; killall Dock

Tetsuo · Nov 19, 2003, 07:28 PM

Originally posted by eevyl:
If you want to see it in action, I posted a motion screen capture at this thread

That's pretty cool, looks like it's running rather chunky though

concavelab · Nov 19, 2003, 10:12 PM

if you type the following in the terminal that should disable that feature and everything should get back to normal.

defaults write com.apple.dock wvous-olddesktop -bool true; killall Dock