Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Andrew Stephens · Oct 31, 2007, 04:16 PM

Straight out of the box the obvious use that I can see is to keep all my web apps (FF, mail app etc) in one space, CS3 in another and writing and project stuff (office) in another etc etc.

anyone else thought of a more interesting way to use this feature?

smacintush · Oct 31, 2007, 07:42 PM

One space for Safari open to any innocuous-looking website like the MacNN forums…another space filled with porn?

gradient · Oct 31, 2007, 07:49 PM

Despite it's limitations, I have been finding it useful for keeping away the clutter. Here is how I have it setup:

1: Web: Safari
2: Text: Mail, Office
3: Media: EyeTV, Quicktime, VLC, iTunes
4: Toast
5: File Transfers: Cyberduck FTP, Transmission
6: FINDER
7: Virtual PC
8: System Utilities: Sys Preferences, Disk Utility, Activity Monitor, etc.

It sounds a bit convoluted and I REALLY wish there were more flexibility but I do find it an improvement for sure. I tend to have a lot of programs open at once and with Spaces I'm spending a lot more less time hiding, minimizing and just generally keeping things orderly then I used to using Tiger.

mjankor · Oct 31, 2007, 07:51 PM

I use one space for all my chat, screensharing and other windows that I want to see instantly without necessarily acting on with a second space as my working zone.

0157988944 · Oct 31, 2007, 08:11 PM

gradient, when moving from space 1 to space 8, do you see the other spaces scroll by as you travel?

.Neo · Oct 31, 2007, 08:17 PM

Originally Posted by adamfishercox

gradient, when moving from space 1 to space 8, do you see the other spaces scroll by as you travel?

No. Spaces is powered by Wormhole Digital Transit (WDT).

0157988944 · Oct 31, 2007, 08:19 PM

Awww. Poo. Does it even "travel" as if it were really going to space 8, or does it just move to the side or down one?

MacosNerd · Oct 31, 2007, 08:27 PM

1. Vmware Fusion - vpn for work
2. Safari/Mail
3. Photoshop
4. iWeb

.Neo · Oct 31, 2007, 08:37 PM

Originally Posted by adamfishercox

Awww. Poo. Does it even "travel" as if it were really going to space 8, or does it just move to the side or down one?

You see the windows of space 1 move away while the new windows of space whatever number move in.

gradient · Oct 31, 2007, 08:50 PM

Originally Posted by adamfishercox

Awww. Poo. Does it even "travel" as if it were really going to space 8, or does it just move to the side or down one?

From 1 to 8 the open windows will shift diagonally across the screen. Basically, 1 to 8 looks the same as 1 to 4.

marsbt · Oct 31, 2007, 09:22 PM

Oh, so the Mac enthusiasts have finally discovered the concept of multiple desktops! And I thought Leopard had introduced something revolutionary.

Mrjinglesusa · Oct 31, 2007, 09:42 PM

Just two. One for everything OS X and the other for full screen Parallels running XP.

gradient · Oct 31, 2007, 09:47 PM

Originally Posted by marsbt

Oh, so the Mac enthusiasts have finally discovered the concept of multiple desktops! And I thought Leopard had introduced something revolutionary.

Finally? I'm pretty sure that just about everybody on this forum knows that virtual desktop apps have been around in various forms for years. Happy trolling.

swiz · Oct 31, 2007, 10:35 PM

1-Finder -Always Open
2-Mail, Safari, iTunes -Always Open
3-iPhoto, Toast, iCal, Address Book -One open at a time usually
4-Design Apps(Adobe, Apple, iApps)
5-Transmission

0157988944 · Oct 31, 2007, 11:13 PM

I will be using 2, most likely. One for Work, One for Mail and Internet. Don't want my apps getting strewn too far...

lpkmckenna · Oct 31, 2007, 11:22 PM

I'll probably use separate spaces for each of my full-screen apps (GarageBand, iPhoto) and do everything else in a single space.

AKcrab · Nov 1, 2007, 12:56 AM

I haven't found a single viable use for spaces. Cmd-Opt clicking on running aps in the dock and exposé have completely eliminated the "clutter" issue for me. Sure, it *looks* cool, and I demo the crap out of it when I'm selling leopard to customers, but I find it completely worthless.

Hal Itosis · 02:10 AM

Originally Posted by AKcrab

I haven't found a single viable use for spaces. Cmd-Opt clicking on running aps in the dock and exposé have completely eliminated the "clutter" issue for me. Sure, it *looks* cool, and I demo the crap out of it when I'm selling leopard to customers, but I find it completely worthless.

So you prefer to *Command-Option* click the Dock, rather than simply clicking?
Where's the advantage in that... which renders Spaces so "completely worthless"?

Besides, that limits you to switching to *ONE* app only. With my Spaces, I simply
click on Console (or Activity Monitor) in the Dock (or type control-5) and I travel
to a space where 2 apps (or however many I want) are available for viewing.

Might want to explore it (for more than 3 days), and let the old imagination warm up.

For me, Spaces has virtually eliminated the need for Exposé (almost). Right now I have
a 3x3 grid (9 spaces), but am really only using 3 of those most of the time [1,2 and 5]

#1 is the main workspace... for whatever may be going on (so no app is "assigned" there).
#2 is for Terminal.app - Period. [Any GUI windows I need there can be "transported" in.]
#5 currently holds Console.app and Activity Monitor

It's handy as all hell... and I've got 6 more spaces waiting for future use.
[In time, I will have a better feeling of how to fill out the rest of the grid.]

(DragThing, MemoryStick, and System Preferences are set to "Every Space".)

Only bummer is that XShelf appears broken... and I suspect Spaces has something
to do with it. It doesn't like 'floating' windows. [had to set MemoryStick to normal].
Floating windoid stuff such as NetMonitor will only appear in the first space they're
launched in... no matter what settings we try. Maybe those apps just need updating.

--

Edit: yoikes, I see that some of DragThing's windows which *float* (apps dock, disks dock
and windows dock) also get lost in the shuffle (stuck to the space where the app launched).
I sure hope developers can get this worked out.

workerbee · Nov 1, 2007, 02:28 AM

Originally Posted by smacintush

One space for Safari open to any innocuous-looking website like the MacNN forums…another space filled with porn?

Watch your keystrokes, boy, watch your keystrokes.
This setup has the potential to go seriously wrong.

I have 6 spaces here (so far):
1) Mail and iCal
2) OmniWeb, Safari, Opera
3) BBEdit, TextMate, YummyFTP
4) Adobe CS suite
5) M$ Office 08, iWork 08
6) Firefox (usually displaying a full-screen CMS)

I'm not entirely certain all apps play nicely with Spaces yet, though; especially old-style drawers in BBedit and OmniWeb and some drop-down alerts (in Toast) sometimes tend to behave weirdly.

Hal Itosis · Nov 2, 2007, 12:08 AM

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis

Edit: yoikes, I see that some of DragThing's windows which *float* (apps dock, disks dock
and windows dock) also get lost in the shuffle (stuck to the space where the app launched).
I sure hope developers can get this worked out.

Fixed in DragThing 5.9.1 !!! [see "Exposé & Spaces" in the *Dock* prefs]

workerbee · Nov 2, 2007, 07:22 AM

For the moment, I turned Spaces off.
I got this in Safari today

.
Also, I was unable to start Photoshop as it kept crashing right away.

Restarting brought everything back to normal.

I wonder if Spaces uses a lot of VRAM... more than my MBP has?

C.A.T.S. CEO · Nov 2, 2007, 07:38 AM

Pretty much every application that I use daily on my MacBook is assigned its own space (i have all 16 enabled). SPaces is a god send for people with small screened Macs. I only have 2 spaces on my iMac (I have 2 20" displays) and Parallels and Screen Sharing are assigned to space 2 and Safari is space one.

mdc · Nov 2, 2007, 08:47 AM

I have four Spaces setup (by default) but I'll probably be changing it to two soon.
I have iChat, Adium, and iTunes all set to follow me around Spaces (which Adium sometimes forgets to do) and then I have an app or two that I do not need to see the progress of (downloads, and stuff like that) set to Space 2.

Pretty much everything else runs in Space 1 and I use expose.

Scarpa · Nov 2, 2007, 01:39 PM

Since I figured out how to use it properly I've been using 3 spaces, mostly.

One for personal stuff, and two for work stuff. I'm a windows admin so I always have at least one full screen RDP session going, that gets it's own space. The other work space has browser and terminal sessions.

I really like expose, but I find opt-arrow to be more natural to me than invoking expose and then sorting through the windows to find the one I want. Since I've got a macbook I'm pretty mouse-averse and prefer to use the keyboard as much as possible.

Ironically getting the Mac has highlighted how irritating it is to have to use the mouse for most of my windows admin stuff.

One minor enhancement to the feature that I would like is to limit apps showing in the cmd-tab window to just the current space.

sc_markt · Nov 2, 2007, 05:57 PM

Originally Posted by Scarpa

I really like expose, but I find opt-arrow to be more natural to me than invoking expose and then sorting through the windows to find the one I want. Since I've got a macbook I'm pretty mouse-averse and prefer to use the keyboard as much as possible.

I wish that when we pressed the opt-arrow keys, the mini space windows in the spaces navigation box that comes up showed each desktop. I think this would make it easier to navigate with the arrow key to the space you wanted to go to.

- Mark

cgc · Nov 2, 2007, 09:00 PM

I have one space with all my mac stuff in it and another for VMWare Fusion (e.g. Fedora Core, Ubuntu, or Windows).

I wish I could switch spaces with Fusion open full screen on one space but that doesn't work.