Don't like Mission Control and miss Spaces!

Uhh, wrong thread?

Steven Maier1 wrote:

Uhh, wrong thread?

I'm not so sure. That is a solution to bring back the Spaces features that were lost.

PLEASE bring back Spaces - I had 9 spaces and it significantly helped my work flow. Mission Control is a disaster with regard to work flow

Know Spaces is not for everyone - but for multi-application users, like myself, it was GREAT.

APPLE moved backwards - not forwards with Mission Control

The "cute" features are negated by the lack of navigation

I too enjoyed and used Spaces extensively. I spend most my day in Terminal with bash commands & vim. My hands rarely ever leave my external keyboard. Moving my hand all the way to my mouse is a waste of time. I loved how I could change Spaces with a quick Cntrl-Arrow and then have specific applications set up for specific functions in each space. One space would be for communication (email, chat, irc, etc), another space for my Bash, vim, mysql, etc, etc. This feature of spatial organization is sorely missed in Mission Control.

You can still do this, just not in two dimensions. You can still move among Desktops with Cntrl-Arrow or Cntrl-#. You can still assign applications to Desktops. Yes, the assignment is clunkier than it was in Snow Leopard, but you usually only do that once.

In Mission Control, apps are assigned to different desktops without my control, and these desktops seem constantly reordered.

You can at least stop the desktops rearranging themselves by turning off 'Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use'. They then have a consistent key press to switch between them. Like quite a few others though I never could come to turns with the old Spaces. I prefer this one but don't the new Exposé as much as the old one.

The problem is the layout of the spaces. Now that they're all side by side, it is harder to get to a specific space. With 9 desktops, each desktop is at max two ctrl+arrow keystrokes away. In Lion, a desktop is potentially four ctrl+arrow presses away.

MC is a disaster. F9 is gone also. Who in the **** thought getting rid of the PRIMARY expose function was a good idea?!?!

We all should be able to choose either stay with mission control app, or go back to Expose & Spaces. At least we should have the option of disable mission control, and buy expose & spaces in the app store in the same way you can buy "keynote", "pages", "numbers" etc

...Steve, let us choose plz!! 😐

i tried that, i copied the exposé/Spaces control panel from my MBP running 10.6.8 to Lion, renaming the MC control panel.

after rebooting, it loads fine, BUT Spaces doesnt actually work. it still reverts to MC. :<

poikkeus,

while you may have disliked spaces, two of its greatest features were allowing you to see a full screen grid view of the desktops (and what is on each space) and to give you a very efficient way of navigating the desktops using the grid view or using keystroke bindings.

(hyperspaces further improved on this by allowing different types of movement with keystroke bindings, e.g. staying within one row or column and wrapping around rather than ONLY moving linearly through all the spaces --- not to mention getting rid of the absurdly limited keystroke choices apple restricts you to use in spaces).

the grid structure allowed for organization of desktops along rows or columns which was helpful for some who form a mental spatial map of the location of the desktops in the grid with what is in that space. (i only wish they allowed for more choices in row length or column height than a max of 4x4.)

one thing mission control has done is eliminate the grid view of the desktops. i cannot fathom how apple thought 10-16 tiny desktops alinged in a straight line would be anything but a step backwards for people who use 10+ desktops. (yes, i use 16 desktops regularly.)

in spaces' grid view, the desktop images were large enough that you could easily see what is contained in each desktop. conversely, in mission control 16 tiny desktops aligned along the top of the screen is nearly unusuable compared with spaces if you're trying to discern between similar looking windows on related desktops.

i think mission control is a great idea and i imagine i would use it in a selective way, but it seems to me apple made a massive mistake in not making an effort to allow aspects of spaces to coexist with mission control--or, to keep with innovation, incorporated spaces into mission control and allowed for different modes of operation which could be toggled with little buttons, e.g., in the finder window.

it's interesting to me that apple jumped in late in the virtual desktops game with spaces (disrupting the existing virtual desktops third party software for OS X) only to be fickle and move on and leave behind the folks who like what apple developed and use regularly for work or professional use.

i'm all for apple's wonderful innovation, but they seem to be neglecting some of their userbase as they innovate.

Mission Control (and full screen apps, which is probably the reason for the switch from spaces to MC) is really innovatice on Laptops especially those with tiny screens like the 11" MacBook Air.

But MC is a step back in compare to Spaces for Macs with a large screen (I won't use fullscreen apps on a 27" screen anyways) and it is completely broken on dual monitor setups (desktops scattered over 2 screens, you can't drag windows from one screen to the other etc.).

Thus I use Lion on my MBA but all Mac Pros and iMacs stay with Snow-Leopard for now or have been downgraded to Snow Leopard (actually they now again boot from the SL clone, I generated before upgrading to Lion).

I bit sad, I cant't use all of the other goddies in Lion on the Desktops, but with MC I was so much less productive than with old Spaces, that I happily trade all the Lion goodies to get back Spaces.

I really hope, Apple comes up with some MC improvements for large screens / multiple monitors, before the first key application becomes Lion only, or I'm really in trouble.

Peter

an addendum to my post ...

i must stay i strongly commend apple on finally relinquishing its hold on keystroke bindings (shortcuts) for moving from desktop to desktop in mission control. one of the reasons i liked hyperspaces so much was that it allowed free reign over what keystroke bindings can be set, for example, moving left/right or next/previous. the use of arrow keys only was way too restrictive. i applaud apple's move to opening this up in lion.

I was so looking forward to Lion particularly with Mission Control as it was presented, but I didn't know it was going to compromise my Dock... Now I HAVE to use Mission Control to access the various windows.. It *****.. Apple if you're listening please put a setting in Dock to at least have the options of opening applications automatically into the Dock. Love the concept for multiples but it's a pain otherwise and Mission Control is messed up.. I'm not updating my other PC's

You can still use the Dock with Mission Control. Just move your mouse to the bottom of the screen, then keep going down. The Dock will pop-up from the bottom of the screen.

Before Lion and Mission Control, Dock would show open applications.. Since Mission Control a big Nada... in Dock.. That my point.. I'd still like to have to option to see my open applications in DOCK..