
Redesigning OSX Spaces: 45˚ Is All It Takes - kinetik
http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/redesigning-spaces/
======
chc
This is an easy trap to fall into, thinking you've solved a problem when
you've actually just specialized for one use case. 45° is all it takes _only
if_ you use Luka's four-space configuration (in much the same way that the
current functionality is ideal for a two-space configuration). This "redesign"
doesn't even define how other configs would work, much less improve on the
status quo. Solutions are always easy when you leave scaling as an exercise
for the reader.

And all the solutions I see in the comments either bring back the major
complaint about the existing functionality (unnatural navigational rules) or
just scrap Luka's design and suggest something else.

~~~
Stormbringer
What you say is a fair point, but the scheme he proposes would make the 2x2
situation so enormously much better that it is criminal that Apple don't
implement it immediately.

That, fixing the Expose/Spaces interaction, and fixing the key binding problem
(when editing documents I got used to using the shortcut to move around
between words, and spaces overloads some of the same shortcuts).

Now that he's pointed out the problem with the vertical versus horizontal
movement, I wonder whether a 1x4 set of spaces would work better for me than
the 2x2 arrangement, given Apple's appalling default behaviours.

~~~
mwarkentin
I use a 1x3 arrangement, and it's pretty easy to keep track of where I am /
which way to go when I need to switch.

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ugh
I think Spaces is dead. I doesn’t really fit anywhere in the vision of the
desktop Apple showed off in the Lion sneak peak, Apple might have decided to
quietly drop it. The new fullscreen mode might take its place.

Spaces wasn’t mentioned in the demo at all and it would be very inelegant to
just tack it on top of the concept Apple has for the desktop. I will be
surprised if it is still there when Lion arrives.

Multitouch gestures to switch between spaces (instead of fullscreen apps as
was demoed in the sneak peak) would be pretty cool but I’m not holding my
breath.

Apple does like to drop nerdy features few people use from time to time. The
only thing that gives me pause is that they also seem quite happy to keep at
least some of them around. The screen corners would be one example. (Then
again, screen corners don’t change the whole desktop around.)

~~~
jimmyjazz14
As a long time desktop *nix user, I have no idea how any one works without
multiple workspaces. For me it's second nature to me to switch to another
workspace to start a new kind of task. Multiple workspaces is such a
brilliantly simple concept I am surprised it took so long for it to be adopted
into OS X. Sadly (for OS X users) Spaces is pretty poorly done compared to how
multiple workspaces generally work in Gnome or KDE.

~~~
ek
Really? In Spaces, I can grab a window with my trackpad and then hit my hotkey
to go to the next space. In Gnome on Ubuntu, I have to right-click and hit
"move to workspace", and in apps with nonstandard widgets (read: Chrome), even
that doesn't work and I have to go down to the taskbar to do that.

~~~
jimmyjazz14
You can do this in most desktop managers for Linux as well, where Spaces fails
is how each workspace in managed. In Gnome each workspace acts almost like a
new lite session, for example only the applications in the current workspace
show up in my task bar (this is optional by the way) and when I alt+tab then
only the applications on the current workspace are tabbed through. This works
very well because when I switch between different task (say photo editing and
programming) I don't want to generally think about what other non-related
task/applications are running on my system. In Spaces every workspace is part
of a kind of global workspace and there is no hiding of task environments.

~~~
toshiroy
That's the only reason why I don't use Spaces. It drives me nuts when I switch
applications with alt+tab and get jumped to another space.

~~~
thought_alarm

        It drives me nuts when I switch applications with
        alt+tab and get jumped to another space. 
    

That's an option you can turn that off in the Expose/Spaces Preferences.

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jjcm
It's not necessarily an improvement. Sure, for navigation it makes things
easier in the 4 workspace situation. However if you're using expose function
in spaces, you'll have to have a 3x3 grid of tiles displayed like so:

    
    
        oxo 
        xox
        oxo
    

(where x is a "space", and o is just blank). The reduction in screen use might
not be worth the boost in key-based navigation (especially since in the best
case, this redesign only saves you a single keystroke [moving diagonally in
the current scheme]). With this 'fix' in place, you'll have screen previews
that are 33% smaller than they were originally, which may very well make
things difficult to find in the expose overview.

~~~
barmstrong
Not directly related to your point but.... I think it comes down to what
percent of users have more than 4 spaces or wouldn't mind only using 4.

The concept of making the typical use case better at the expense of
completeness seems to be very much in line with Apple's UI decisions.

I can't remember where I read this (I think it was in "The Inmates Are Running
The Asylum" - a great UI design book). But he makes the point that as
programmers we are trained to think about edge cases so we often bring this
over to UI design where it's better to think of the typical case.

Basically, when given two options in UI design:

1\. satisfy 80% of users with a simple design

2\. accomodate all users, but add a little complexity

Choose 1

~~~
jokermatt999
I think this is also part of why a lot of typical techie types dislike Apple.
Apple tends to go with #1, and often times techies are the edge cases who
would be frustrated by it.

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fleitz
He's redesigning the arrow keys to map to screens instead of mapping to
movement from the current screen.

The solution to a higher problem space (eg. more than 4 screens) are
additional unique symbols. So if you want 8 screen use the number pad. etc. If
you want 26 screens just map a screen to each letter. etc.

~~~
avinashv
But you can go to 9 screens with the existing system: I press Control+[number]
and it takes me to that screen--this is built-in today.

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sgentle
That's crazy. I actually set my virtual desktops up exactly as he described in
VirtuaWin, back in the day.

The advantage he doesn't talk about directly is that if you're using a virtual
window manager that doesn't have a notion of physical space (ie, it just has
jump-to-desktop hotkeys, there's no "go up/down/left/right" hotkey), you can
still configure it in a pseudo-physical layout using this trick by mapping
each space to an arrow key.

Obviously it doesn't map very well to n>4 spaces, but you could always have a
Zelda-style "shadow world" with a different modifier key + up/down/left/right
to get 8.

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iuguy
As someone who uses multiple tagged desktops in Awesome on Arch Linux, but
doesn't even use spaces on Mac, can anyone tell me why I should, and is it
better or worse than Awesome's multiple desktops?

~~~
cookiecaper
I'll just add my support for the sibling comments that Spaces is really
awkward in comparison to workspaces/tags/whatever on all the Linux DEs I've
used, including minimalist stuff like Openbox. In OS X, Spaces is just a
tacked-on deal that doesn't work well with the rest of the experience, and
most people don't know it exists until they accidentally trigger it with a
corner or key combo. If you value multiple desktops, you'll be much better off
using a Linux DE.

I run Arch Linux on my MacBook Pro, for instance. This has made at least two
Mac fanboys seriously hate me.

~~~
iuguy
I'd like to think that having Mac fanboys hate you is a peripheral perk that
comes with running Linux on it.

To be fair, I dislike fanboys of all shapes, colours and flavours.

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sambeau
I have 6 spaces. How would this solution work for that?

~~~
amalcon
I've never actually used this before, but I've always envisioned arranging
them in a cube, one on each face.

~~~
sambeau
The problem with a cube is that you will always end up with at least one
upside-down screen.

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burgerbrain
Or just number them. All I have to do to change "tags" (loosely analogous, but
actually far more powerful...) in my window manager is whack meta-#. The user
is free to visualize this however they choose...

~~~
JeremyBanks
They already are numbered; you can choose to use Control, Command or Alt + the
number to switch.

~~~
burgerbrain
Huh. I guess I'm not really getting why the author thinks this _"No matter
which space I am in, the keyboard shortcut to move to any other space is
always the same."_ is a big gain then. If he really likes arrow keys so much
I'm sure he can just remap the shortcuts to get the effect he's describing.

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austintaylor
I don't understand why switching spaces frequently is the interaction to
optimize. If you are switching frequently, you are using it wrong. I've seen
people running just two apps, and using Spaces to switch between them, and
it's painful to watch.

I stopped using Spaces after a while. I find Cmd+Tab to be quite good enough.

~~~
cookiecaper
Most people are going to use more than two programs, first of all. Secondly,
who cares if someone likes to use Spaces for two programs? I guess you're
annoyed by the animation? Turn it off.

I've never really liked the aspect of the Mac philosophy that essentially
amounts to "my way or the highway".

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gfodor
For those who don't know:

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-swoosh-animation-off -bool YES

restart finder.

No more annoying animation. This + number key bindings make it so it is as
fast as xmonad to switch desktops.

~~~
focusaurus
Can you double check that? You have a space between -off and -bool, is that
correct? I tried it, restarting finder with "killall -KILL Finder" but I still
see the animation.

~~~
allenbrunson
I just tried it myself, and the defaults line is correct. However, he says you
then have to kill Finder, which is wrong. the proper thing to type next is:

killall Dock

... which finally causes the setting to take effect.

------
mickdarling
This idea breaks down pretty quickly when you add more spaces. I use 9 spaces
on my macbook pro and have created multi-touch swipe motions to move me in any
virtual direction I want. The simpler solution is to just make the spaces an
infinitely wrapping plane like playing asteroids.

For any one who thinks that 9 is too many spaces, back when I used lower
resolution PC's I actually had a tool called JSpager that gave me 12-16
different 'spaces' and a miniview in the corner with views of the layouts in
each space, and I could easily keep track of everything.

~~~
cookiecaper
I have 15 tags in my awesomewm environment right now. Awesome also has
independent tags per screen unlike most other multi-desktop WMs, so when I had
two screens and nine tags on each I effectively had 18 desktops, and I also
didn't usually have an issue keeping track of windows.

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joblessjunkie
This is one of the first things I do on any new Mac:

    
    
        defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-wrap-arrows -boolean NO
    

This disables the spaces wrap-around behavior, simplifying the space to an
easily navigated 2x2 grid. You can always get to the bottom-left space without
already knowing where you are.

So while it's not exposed to casual users, the author's request is already
implemented in the OS.

------
Hoff
Set the lower right hot-corner to exposé and the lower left hot-corner to
spaces, and navigating around spaces and windows becomes trivial.

Hit both corners in sequence and you get all windows visible, and you can view
or drag windows around between spaces as needed.

Or hit the spaces hot-corner and the four-finger swipe, if you're running with
a Unibody or a Magic Trackpad, for the same view.

~~~
billmcneale
This only works if you use your mouse to move around Spaces. The current model
is quite a bit broken if you use keyboard shortcuts, as correctly described in
this article.

~~~
rosstafarian
erm whats wrong with using ctrl-space# to switch between spaces for the same
effect he describes but with up to 9 spaces?

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aphyr
Pfft. All blackbox users know mousewheel-on-desktop is the One True Context
Switcher!

Jokes aside, I can't help but feel that Spaces is somehow incompatible with
the OS X application model. Because the desktop is application-centric as
opposed to window-centric, it is very difficult to use an application for
_multiple tasks_ at once, which conflicts with the workspace-as-task model.

Web browsers and terminals, for example, get spun up on every workspace for
various short-lived tasks and destroyed shortly thereafter. But spaces (at
least as far as my 3 hours of hacking got me) insists on switching to the last
workspace containing a window of the starting application, instead of placing
the new window where I am _now_.

~~~
thought_alarm
There is an option in the Expose Preferences that determines whether or not to
switch spaces when activating an application.

~~~
aphyr
_dope_! Was that introduced in Snow Leopard? My apologies.

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piramida
Genius. I used 4 spaces for some time and stopped using them without a
conscious reason why - it just felt inconvenient switching between them. But
now reading this it becomes clear why - the need to scroll through all spaces
and no muscle memory of a needed move to get to specific space have developed
over months of trying to use them.

For more than 4 spaces, it could be a grid still, because you have to look at
them anyway to actually remember where you need to switch to. For 4, this is a
must-have change. So it will be the same grid as used for 9-spaces setup, just
without the corner and center blocks.

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blahedo
I've long used[0] a 3x3 layout and mapped the numeric keypad so that each
number takes me to a desktop in that location. It was frustrating when Apple,
for no apparent reason, removed the Fn+789uiojkl virtual numeric keypad for
its laptops, but I found that KeyRemap4Macbook has a switch to make
RightCmd+123qweasd do basically that, so I was able to adapt.

[0] Before I did 3x3 I did 2x5. Why? Because the keyboards on the Sun Ultras
that we used in grad school had this 2x5 bank of keys on the side of the
keyboard that I wasn't otherwise using....

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siddhant
I really wish Spaces would integrate with Cmd-Tab. Everytime I use Spaces, the
only thing that bugs me is Cmd-Tab. If I'm on space 1, and I press Cmd-Tab, it
shows _all_ the open applications, which really doesn't make any sense (at
least to me). If I'm on a particular space, I usually want to switch only
between applications that are open in that particular space.

Does anyone know of any alternative to this?

~~~
keso
I think you could use Witch. <http://manytricks.com/witch/>

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rosstafarian
to all the people worried about apple dropping spaces: Mission Control. Mac
command central.

Mission Control is a powerful and handy new feature that provides you with a
comprehensive view of what’s running on your Mac. It gives you a bird’s-eye
view of everything — including Exposé, _Spaces_ , Dashboard, and full-screen
apps— all in one place. With a simple swipe gesture, your desktop zooms out to
Mission Control. There you can see your open windows grouped by app,
thumbnails of your full-screen apps, Dashboard, and even other _Spaces_ ,
arranged in a unified view. And you can get to anything you see on Mission
Control with just one click. Making you the master of all you survey.

from <http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/>

and i don't see how the above using the arrow keys in such a manner is
superior to just using ctrl-space# for quickly switching between up to 9
spaces

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embwbam
You could set this up today with something like keyboard maestro.
<http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/> \- just remap the keys. You could
create 9 spaces, only use top/left/down/right, and map the arrow stroke to the
command to jump to a specific space

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glhaynes
This is one of the reasons I've never liked (and never used) Spaces. I think
this would be a better solution, even if it meant making the max number of
spaces be four.

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hokkos
It it already like that but with the corners

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zethraeus
yeah. this isn't a solution. this is a special case with its clear issues
disguised as an 'open question'.

No dice.

