Mac OS X 10.5: Spaces
New in Apples’ OS X version 10.5 “Leopard” is a window management tool called Spaces. As you can read about here, the basic idea is that although you may be looking at a “desktop” the size of your screen, the doesn’t eman that your desktop has to be limited to the size of your screen. So Spaces breaks that limit, by litting you assign (in the system preferences) how many alternate desktops you want to have.
While the essential idea of Spaces may seem easy enough to grasph, under deeper thought a few interesting issues can pop up. Say you’re in Space 1, but you have a window open for a program in Space 3, but you click o the dock icon for that program while still in Space one. What happens? Does it open a new window in Space 1? Does it bring those windows to whichever space you’re currently in? Does it move you to Space 3? Before Leopard’s release, thsi question was debated on many forums, but Apple came up with some solutions that work, by golly. This article will deal with the basic use of Spaces,as well as some of the issues of usability that are relevant as mentioned above, and present in the Spaces system preference panel.
Basic Usability
If you’ve used Exposé, Apple’s first Mac OS X window management tool, spaces is basically an extension of this thought. You press a key or perform a designated action to invoke the command, then you see an overview of all your Spaces, from which you can choose which space you want to work in. All this is well and good, but how can you put it to use for you?
PERSONAL SPACES VERSUS WORK SPACES
One option that was tossed around a lot on the web after Leopard was announced was the idea of dedicated one space to personal-type tasks, and another space for work-related tasks. So you have your email up in your work space, along with that paper you’re typing & the websites you’re using as research, while your personal space is populated with personal web pages (like, say, www.randombob.net for instance), maybe an Instant Messaging application that you use to talk to your pals, and a card game perhaps. Now, when you’re in work mode, you go to your work space. When you’re in a personal mode, you can simply switch to your personal space. This can save you the hassle of opening & closing windows all the time as you feel the need to go from one mode to the other, and time as well.
APPLICATION-SPECIFIC SPACES
Another idea that has been tossed around – and indeed one I’ve been toying with myself – is the idea of tying an application to a space. Say you have a program that uses pretty much all of your screen at once, and when you’re there, you don’t want to bother with other programs or windows or anything.
I use a photo program called Aperture, which a lot of people rave out its full-screen mode’s awesomeness. Many have gone ahead and put this application in its own space, so it never has to compete with any other windows. Thus, they go to their photo space when they want to do photo stuff.
ANY OTHER TYPES OF SPACES
You can create any number of spaces, and you can arrange them and organize them in any way you see fit. Perhaps you’d want to keep typing stuff up on one, web stuff up on another. It’s entirely your choice, and there’s nothing preventing you from designing a workflow (or playflow) that is most beneficial to you.
UPDATE:
My Fiancé, who’s currently taking college courses (02.2008) recently came up with a fabulous way to organize her content for her classes using Spaces: she has a space for each class, that way she can keep “Psychology”-related stuff in one space and under control, “Philosophy”-related materials in one space, and so on. Not a bad idea, and you can see that there’s many ways you can put spaces to work for you as well, if you just think about how you can make the most of the tool!
But it seems Superfluous, random bob
Indeed it seems that way to me too, fellow readers. After all, if you have a program that makes great use of full-screen, then simply open it up. As soon as you do, it will have the full screen at its disposal if you so choose. What’s the deal with giving it it’s own designated “Space?”
In all honesty, Exposé works much better for me. I find I like having all my windows in one desktop, then just being able to invoke the “All Windows” command lets me go from one program to the other and vice versa. Windows I’m not using for long periods I simply minimize, or do the real simple thing and ignore. It almost seems like more work to juggle Spaces, trying to remember where things are, than to just ignore or otherwise pass by windows you are not currently using.
At this point, I’m toying with Spaces myself. I’m not sold on it nor its usefulness to me. I can see how if you constantly go from one “mode” to another it could be useful. But for me, it’s not as efficient a tool as “Exposé” is. However, it’s an option, and if it’s not going to be useful, then opt out. BUT, as I said I am toying with it. Why? To learn about it. So I know it’s there. So I know how to operate it and perhaps put it to use for me. I encourage you to do the same as well. The computer is a tool. These programs and behaviors are tools at your disposal. But alas, only if you know how to use them do they become useful.
Now, let’s explore the how’s of Spaces. I will walk you through the preferences and what they mean, and how to put each to use.
Spaces System Preferences Pane
Here’s a screenshot of the Spaces Preferences pane.
To begin, it’s necessary to enable Spaces by checking the box in the upper left corner. Then you have the option to add “rows” and “Columns” to arrive at the number of Spaces you’re going to be using. The default is 4, but you can modify it down to 2 or up to 16 (yes, 16 different spaces). You’re presented with a nice graphical representation of how the Spaces are arranged. Below this, there’s a pane titled “Application Assignments.”
It’s here that you can assign certain programs to ONLY start up in certain spaces. This is useful to keep things you want to remain in a Space, always in that Space (such as your web program in your “Personal Space”). Then, by just clicking on the icon in any space you will always be transported to the space that belongs to that program, or vice versa.
Of course you also have the option of making a program show up in every Space. For instance, say you want to have your IM program, iChat, available in every space you may find yourself in, that way you can keep a conversation going no matter what you’re doing. Well that can be done by assigning iChat to “Every Space.”
Further below that is a section dedicated to navigating around your Spaces. You can set up certain keys or key combinations to invoke Spaces, and also to move from one to the other without panning out to the “Bird’s-eye View” that invoking the Spaces command usually does. This way, if you’re in space 1 but you want to move to the right to Space 2 because you know what you need is there, then you can just jump to that Space straight away.
These are the basics of Spaces, but there’s some other ways to get around, too.
Spaces Tips
By checking the box in the Upper-right corner of the Spaces system preference pane, you can enable an icon in the Menu Bar, as seen here. With this, you can click and select which Space to go to immediately.
You can find a Spaces icon in your applications folder. You can drag this icon to your dock, then clicking on it will transport you to the Bird’s-eye view of all of your different Spaces.
If you want to move a window from one space to another, you can quickly do this by dragging it to the side of the screen that the space you’re looking for resides. For instance, if you were in space 1 but wanted to put iTunes in space 2, you could just drag the iTunes window all the way to the right of the screen and after a split-second of the mouse being against the right side of the screen, you’ll be transported to Space 2. This works in any direction, up or down, left or right, through any spaces.
You can put Spaces into use in conjunction with Exposé. Simply invoke one, then the other, and you can see all your Spaces with all the windows organized as well.
The End
The case stands that Spaces is not for everyone. I myself find that I’m struggling to find use for it, though I’m trying. I’ve got Quicken, my finiancial management program, set to open and operate in Space 2 only. Since Quicken takes so much space on the screen and has so many windows open to be useful, that I find at least putting it in its own Space – along with a Safari window to compare online banking statements to my own records – makes it easier to get back and forth from one needed window to another without the clutter of unnecessary windows (I don’t really need my address book for this, do I?).
So I guess it could come in handy in some instances, but then again I’ve already come across instances where I needed to move Quicken windows to my regular desktop to get the full use out of it (comparing to dates in the calendar, for instance). So as I said before, it may not be for you, but it just may be, as well. And as the old adage goes, “you never know unless you try…”