Don't like Mission Control and miss Spaces!

Better IMO is to report this issue to Apple's engineering by send a bug report or an enhancement request via its Bug Reporter system for each thing you're discussing. To do this, register as an Apple Developer—it's free and available for all Mac users and gets you a look at some development software. Since you already have an Apple username/ID, use that. Once a member, go to Apple BugReporter and file your bug report or enhancement request. You'll get a response and a follow-up number; thus, starting a dialog with engineering. That bypasses marketing and other pathways within Apple.

To expand on this, the whole philosophy of Lion (with which many people disagree, but that's a different discussion) is that applications (and by extension desktops) and the content they manage are persistent across reboots, logins/logouts, application start/stop - whatever state changes may occur on your computer. The idea is that you shouldn't have to think about what apps are running, or what documents you have open, or whether you have saved those documents. Just create your workflow, do what you do with your documents, and Apple's software will take care of the details automatically. So, while it is true that the method used to assign apps to desktops is clunkier in Lion than it was in Snow Leopard (and feel free to add to the chorus singing to Apple that this is a mistake), if you use Lion in the way it is intended to be used, i.e., set everything up once and then just let the system manage it for you, other than the fact that you can't arrange desktops geometrically I think you will find that it does what you want in the same way it did in Snow Leopard. That is, if the apps you used in Snow Leopard behaved well with Spaces, those apps will still behave well with Lion desktops. What Lion does that Snow Leopard doesn't is that if you do close an app, or an app crashes, or you restart the system, when you come back everything will be exactly as you left it - the same documents will be open, in the same state, in the same desktop (if that app is playing well with Mission Control - not all do today, but they didn't in Snow Leopard either, and that will get better over time). If you forget to save a document, no worries, the system has done that for you automatically in the background (again, for now, in Apple apps that support versions, but over time more and more apps will support versioning). Yes, it's a different paradigm than we're all used to, but it's a lot closer to how people worked before computers and crappy software messed everything up. Try going with it rather than fighting it and see if it doesn't work as well or better for you than Snow Leopard did.

Timothy I just found this link in another MC issues discussion:

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/08/12/mac-101-additional-tips-for-os-x-lions-mission-co ntrol/

In it I can read this:

"This Desktop" will "pin" the app and its windows to your current Desktop, both now and for all future launches of the application.

And also this:

This may not be true for all users migrating from Snow Leopard, but my Spaces preferences from Snow Leopard carried over to Lion, so I didn't have to re-assign any applications after upgrading.

So I think if it doesn't work for you, maybe it suddenly does after upgrading to 10.7.x. Keep looking out for the 'x.' And staying with Snow Leopard until then I wouldn't call a bad idea.

The reason I use a Mac is "ease of use"

Spaces provided this - Lion/Mission Control does NOT - that is the bottom line.

The capability to move up and down to an application, not just horizontally is MUCH MORE EFFICIENT - especially on a two monitor system.

Who cares about the "philosophy of Lion" - I care about MY workflow.

APPLE - BRING BACK SPACES

MISSION CONTROL IS A DISASTER

There seems to be 2 different viewpoints:

• Some say, MC is a hugh step back and ruins my so far elegant Spaces workflow.
• And others say, once you get used to MC it is as good if not better than Spaces.

I'd say, it greatly depends on what size of display you are working.

On a Laptop with a recent trackpad MC brings some improvements along with fullscreen apps and whole new set of gestures. And frankly you probably haven't used a grid of 9 or 12 spaces on the tiny screen in SL anyways, so the move from 2 Spaces side by side to MC is probably not that dramatic.

On a 27" iMac using apps in fullscreen more is plain silly with a few exceptions (like Aperture f.e.). And you might prefer to use a mouse (not necessarily the Magic Mouse) instead of a trackpad, so you won't benefit much from the new gestures. In that case MC is likely more a step back, than an improvement.

On a Mac Pro with dual 24" monitors, MC is completely broken. Not only can't you rearange whole desktops or drag windows between the small desktops in the top row, it is a constant puzzle to match the desktops for the left and right monitor as they don't show side by side like in Spaces but are spread over both monitors. So you have to count: The 5th deskop on the right monitor matches to 5th desktop on the left monitor etc. And you even can't drag windows between the monitors while in MC.

I'm really puzzled, that neither Apple nor the thousands of developers, who had access to Lion beta builds for almost a year, didn't realize, that MC doesn't work with dual monitors at all. Do they all work on Laptops nowadays?

And finally - I put this in a new thread - it seems you can't activate MC over screen sharing while it worked seamless for Spaces over screen sharing.

Peter Gutbrod wrote:

There seems to be 2 different viewpoints:

• Some say, MC is a hugh step back and ruins my so far elegant Spaces workflow.
• And others say, once you get used to MC it is as good if not better than Spaces.

There's a third one for all of us who've never invoked spaces and have no use for it's MC replacement. 😉

There's a fourth one (and counting) for people who haven't learned the full features of Mission Control. But the above post:

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/08/12/mac-101-additional-tips-for-os-x-lions-mission-co ntrol/

...may convince the uninitiated. I haven't mastered MC yet, but it seems really close to a killer app.

As I stated, I have no use for it or spaces. Doesn't meet my workflow requirements and I hate having two versions show up when I view what used to be All Windows and no way to delete the duplicated one.

Poikkeus wrote:

There's a fourth one (and counting) for people who haven't learned the full features of Mission Control. But the above post:

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/08/12/mac-101-additional-tips-for-os-x-lions-mission-co ntrol/

...may convince the uninitiated. I haven't mastered MC yet, but it seems really close to a killer app.

True, some might not have explored MC to its fullest and complain about things missing in MC, that actually are there but have to be accessed in a different way.

But you can't really argument against the serious shortcomings of MC with dual monitors.

Its obvious Apple concentrated on Laptops and iOS similarity, when they designed MC, and tolerated that it is not really working with dual monitors - at least for now.

I'm pretty sure, we will see some enhancements of MC in the near future, to make it better compartble with dual monitors, like combining the small desktop icons for both screens on the main screen, like it was in Spaces or make the second screen to show the Finder for full screen apps (not actually MC but somehow related).

I don't think, we will get back Spaces, as it would have to be enhanced to work with fullscreen apps. I don't think Apple will take the effort to maintain 2 different desktop managers.

Maybe a thirdparty company will do one like we once had with virtual desktop. But they have to be quick before even the most unwillingly brains have been adjusted to the MC workflow. 😉

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

You can manage this with Mission control.

1. Go to System Prefs/Mission Control

2. Uncheck "Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use"

3. Open an app in the preferred desktop

4. Right click its icon in the dock

5. Select Options/Assign to Current Desktop

Now, even with that, MC is harder to Navigate than Expose/Spaces. So, my navigation consists of simply clicking in the dock on the application I want rather than using spaces to navigate.

I loved Spaces when it was added to Snow Leopard. It's my most used feature -- that and Expose together are awesome. Mission control is a piece of crap.

I use to love being able to switch to a new "empty" space" (ie. no apps running on it), so I could get to the desktop or say launch a different app to occupy that new space. How do you open an "empty" space with Mission Control. From what I can tell, this isn't possible.

Sikosis

It is both possible and easy. Launch MC. It there is an empty space in the top row, simply click it. If there are none, move your cursor to the top right of the row and you will see a + sign. Click that to create a new empty space.

You can also command tab until you find a new empty space if one is available.

If I assign my apps to different desktops and add different background photos, when I close the desktops (by clicking on the x by the desktop in Mission Control) the desktops with all their assignments are gone.

Why are you deleting the Desktops if you want the assignments to stay? Stop deleting the Desktops.

Spaces were far simpler in that it was possible to centrally assign apps to different desktops and they always launched in the correct desktop.

Move an App to a Desktop in MC, then, right-click on the Dock icon and select the particular Desktop location from the Options menu. I don't know why dragging to a Desktop doesn't assign it, but it doesn't. That might be a good Feedback item to send asking for a modifier key to press when dropping so that you can assign to that Desktop when dropping. Kind of like the command and option keys do when moving/copying a file in the Finder.

I am not able to get MC to open apps assigned to higher number desktops unless they remain constantly open.

I'm not sure what you are saying, here. The apps will return to the Desktop assigned if you set the Desktop as described above. However, if you mean you are deleting the Desktop, then yes, the assigment will go away because you have deleted the Desktop.

Furthermore, it does not seem to be possible to reorder full-screen apps in MC, which is a sore shortcoming.

This does seem to be a problem. I can't stand Full Screen apps on any OS, so I haven't really paid much attention. I tried them out and found no particular value. I just tried and can't find a way to move them arround.

Why do I constatly have to go over iCal to get to Mail when side-swiping...

I don't know. Do you have iCal and Mail on the same Desktop? If so, click on Mail instead of just swiping to the desktop (or move them to separate desktops).

Ah thanks for that ... strange that it appears on the Left hand side on one of my iMacs and on another iMac it's on the Right hand side. Also strange that you set this in the application itself, rather than via System Preferences like you would expect.

At least I have my workflow functionality back ... I guess I'll get use to it.