Spaces
Apple October 29th, 2007
When the first details of Leopard sprung onto the scene at WWDC 2006, Spaces was something which caught the eye for a second, and immediately disappeared from my mind. Even over the past few weeks when the official feature list was posted on Apple’s website and Spaces was featured as one of the main components to the operating system, I still glanced over it - thinking it wouldn’t change the way I worked.
Boy, was I wrong. At this point in my continued exploration of Leopard, Spaces is by far one of the most convenient Leopard feature.
Active Spaces
I’m currently using three separate Spaces. These are all in a single row as I find this much easier to remember what each space contains in my mind. Although you can’t name individual Spaces within System Preferences, I’ve given each of these ‘virtual’ labels. Focus, information, and communication.
Focus is home to any application I’m currently working within such as photo editing applications, web browsers, media organizers, and text editors.
Information is used for iTunes and my RSS reader NewsFire. I keep both of these permanently open in this space for quick access to the latest news and podcasts.
Communication is home to Mail, iChat, Skype, and Twitterrific. This is my favorite Spaces environment of all - allowing me to keep tab on all communicational tools on my machine. I’m frequently switching to this tab and comprehending emails, tweets, and instant messages at once.
Spacing Out
The ability to assign certain applications to different Spaces is something third party applications such as Virtue Desktops in Tiger didn’t allow. The feature is very convenient in keeping applications sorted in a tidy manner.
Shortcut keys are easily customizable, I have mine set using the default choice the OS shipped with (Control + Arrow Keys), although this can be switched on user demand.
If I could add one thing to the organizational side of Spaces, I’d like to be able to name individual Spaces and have these names appear underneath the overlay window when switching between.
For a feature I initially skimmed past, Spaces is quite easily my favorite major feature of Leopard. It has shaped my general day-to-day computing use in just two days of practical use - not something that can be said about to many other applications.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
I am banking on using spaces in this fashion as well. I will trow safari and things like iChat, twitterrific and the Pownce app into one space. I will throw mail in a space of it`s own. Aperture deserves a space also. I will throw itunes and my RSS reader into another space. Will try to keep it at 4 :D
October 29th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Typo, 2nd paragraph: “Boy, was I wrote.” Should be “Boy, was I wrong.” ?
Your Spaces setup is just like mine, 3 Spaces in a row. I use SteerMouse to map my Logitech LX7’s forward/back buttons (not the Tilt wheel, mind you) to Space’s back/forward. I can drag any window, and switch to the next Space it one easy hand gesture.
Spaces is great. By far the feature that will impact me the most.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
I don’t find it to useful myself, but i suppose i’ve never really given it a chance. Even though Alec went ahead and set it for me on screen-sharing and moved all my windows. I still wasn’t really that impressed.
I still like, just bringing up the app and then just minimizing it or hiding it. It works for me.
Maybe we can screen-share sometime :)
October 29th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Great article i will be getting a mac book for my birthday in decembre, with leopard ofcourse. Can’t wit this will b emy first real mac. Not hda much eerience about them but i love most other apple products.
This does seem a good feature and hopefully it will be as inovative as tabs where to web browsing, Thanks Firefox.
October 29th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Spaces could prove to be very a ver productive apps.
Can’t wait to give it a try. Still waiting for my copy of Leopard to arrive.
Question: Do you use Photoshop CS3? If yes, were there any problems after you upgraded to Leopard?
October 30th, 2007 at 1:46 am
i’m trying to somehow persuade my mum to buy a macbook pro for the university course she is doing next year - mainly so i can use it when she’s not.
this is one of the main selling points for her, i put the idea in her mind that it will make her a lot more productive - that she can easily change from work to pleasure then back to work again all with a simple keypress.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:16 am
At first, I thought the exact same thing about Spaces. When I read your article, I remembered that I used to have a spaces app (don’t remember the name) on my Mac mini. I enjoyed using that app, so I suppose I will be a big fan of Spaces once I actually get my MacBook Pro.
October 30th, 2007 at 6:38 am
Not a Photoshop user myself, Aperture does all I want for an image editing application. Sorry I can’t be of any help with this question.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Hey Glenn, I have a quick question regarding spaces, actually. One thing that used to annoy me about VirtueDesktops is that if you clicked a dock icon in the dock, you would not be immediately switched to its appropriate space. The window would just open up in that current space. Do you understand what I mean? If so, could you tell me if Spaces does that? I hope not. :-P
October 30th, 2007 at 8:14 am
If you click on an application assigned to another Space, Leopard takes you to that Space. You’ll be thrilled with it.
October 30th, 2007 at 9:56 am
My install didn’t exactly go to plan either, I initially installed Leopard using the ‘Upgrade’ option only to find that the OS was sluggish and the animations where particularly bad so then I changed my mind and went for the Wipe and Install. Leopard is much faster now and it was definitely a good opportunity to sort out some junk.
I agree with you I never thought I would use spaces but they have actually come in very handy especially if your using a macbook with very little work space.
October 30th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I’m really glad you did multiple posts in one day. Instead of one every few days. ;)
October 30th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
I’m going to attempt to up the production rate if I can Dawson. I’m in the middle of the planning stages to further improve the blogs design + backend which has given me a little extra energy to produce content.
October 30th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I love Spaces as well! I can’t wait to take full advantage of it. I, like yourself, wish we had the ability to name the individual spaces.
P.S. I like that you’re writing more too!
October 30th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
That’s great to here Glenn. Presumably if you are still using the default hotkeys you must have “switched ;)” back to the wired keyboard?
October 30th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
I also didn’t think Spaces would be much, and also in just two days have learned to love it. I have six, with 18 apps tied to specific spaces and one that follows me everywhere.
I use the option to show it in the menu bar. Not to switch between them (keyboard is much easier), but to quickly see the number space I’m in.
Oh, and here’s a nice trick: Grab a window in, say, space 2, and drag it all the way so the curser hits the left side of your monitor. Now you and the window are moved to space 1. Slick!
October 30th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
I just started using Spaces today and I’m really liking it. I’m not sure if it’s pretty memory intensive on my computer though.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Still with the wireless keyboard. Might switch back, but I’m okay with this for now - had no problems whatsoever since installing Leopard.
October 30th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
The problem with using wireless keyboard is it takes up a lot of unnecessary power, thus reducing the battery life.
October 31st, 2007 at 4:21 am
The reason why I said that was because I though the whole convenience of the default Spaces hotkeys was the fact that ‘CTRL’ was right next to the cursor keys, you can even comfortably use one hand.
I will be changing mine to ‘ALT’ + ‘Cursor’ when mine comes :P
October 31st, 2007 at 10:33 am
Couldn’t agree more - Spaces are great, and three is the magic number (of spaces)!
October 31st, 2007 at 1:51 pm
I really think like you do, Glenn. At first, I toughts that Spaces wouldn’t change anything, but I had to see it to beleive it ! BOY Spaces is so useful. Give us more of your toughts about Leopard ! And how do you find the new Apple Mail version ? I personnaly find it awesome !
Have a good week.
October 31st, 2007 at 3:50 pm
For some people, Spaces is great, productive, and just more fun. For me, its not. I don’t like clicking an icon in the dock to go to the space (or remembering which apps are where.). Also, you can’t move Twitterrific (easily) between Spaces which quite annoys me, and without growl working right (at least for me), I need all my windows on one screen.
Does anyone know how Spaces reacts to dual displays? For example, if you have 8 spaces, does it show the option as 4 spaces on one screen (from the “big” up high view) and 4 on the other, or just 8 on one?
October 31st, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Chris,
You don’t really need to go to a space, you just go to (or launch) and application like you do now, and it takes you to the appropriate space. Same with switching to an open app. What do you use to switch now? If you launch/switch with Quicksilver or Spotlight they’ll take you to the right space automatically. If you click on the app’s icon in the dock it does the same thing. If you use Expose, it works beautifully in spaces, just hit the spaces key (F8) and then the Expose key and you have every window in every space in front of you to click on!
Regarding Growl and Twitterrific, set them to Every Space, and they’ll just follow you to any space you go, no need to move them. I use this setting for iChat.
As for dual monitors, it treats both monitors as one desktop, just as it does now. So each “space” consists of both monitors.
October 31st, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Chris: I have dual displays. When you use hotkeys to move between spaces (eg ctrl+left arrow), the windows scroll past on both monitors. When you use the Spaces icon in the dock, the outline of your two monitors appears (instead of just one rectangle) enough times for however many spaces you have set up.
Hope that helps - it’s quite hard to put into words :).
Alec.
November 1st, 2007 at 5:51 am
Spaces is the one thing I have found to be lackluster. I don’t really see anything here that Virtue Desktops didn’t already accomplish (except maybe hot corner activation). I can’t really see how it’s that useful to you either Glenn, seeing as you have a 30″ display, but I see that you’ve found a way to use it productively.
I guess it just doesn’t appeal to me. I like having everything on one screen so I can access it all at once if need be.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:35 am
Seems like Apple is coming a little late to the party.
November 1st, 2007 at 11:34 am
word
November 1st, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Spaces is one of Leopard’s biggest features for me, although I find Stacks and QuickLook improve productivity much more.
Still, the ability to move the apps I’m not using that often, but leave open in the background into one space, iTunes in another, chat apps in the third and my main app in the first really speeds things up, rather than leaving things minimized in what used to be a very cluttered dock.
November 7th, 2007 at 2:55 am
Nice to see that OSX has finally got it after the many years of Linux Distros having it! Though you can see why Apple users do tend to like lots of RAM!
November 9th, 2007 at 1:43 am
I too, am addicted to Spaces. There’s a trick to maximizing your efficiency in Spaces, which I just posted…
http://www.iSights.org/2007/11/confessions-of-.html
November 19th, 2007 at 11:22 am
VirtueDesktops on my Tiger installation does allow me to assign certain applications to certain spaces. It’s called “binding”. It works for the most part, except my Adium conversation window and contacts list tend to get “binded” to different spaces. For instance, my contacts list is shown in the first space, and the conversations window will be in the “Internet” space. It’s really annoying.
I don’t use VirtueDesktops much, just thought I’d mention that.
And also, when you bound an app to a space, when you clicked on it in the Dock it would jump to that space with full animation and all.
December 10th, 2007 at 6:34 am
I’m not sure how useful this actually is, but try this: hit F8 (or whatever) to get that Spaces view where you see them all, then hit F9 or whatever key you have mapped to activate Exposé’s “all windows” view. Show that to your PC friends.
December 26th, 2007 at 5:52 am
I’m really happy with spaces, and in combination with a launcher like quicksilver it totally rocks out :)
i assign my photoshop and dreamweaver etc to second space,my browser (Flock or Firefox) to space 1, itunes and msn to space 3 (not gonna name everything here but I use 4 spaces in one column). When my mac boots up and I log in it opens all those progs through quicksilver and they all go to their space so I’ve got a great overview of everything :) love it and glad to see more people do :)