How to rename desktops under Mission Control

Renaming desktops is a must!

i was really frustrated not being able to rename the desktops as well but i do have an alternative answer to labeling the desktops. I figured just using the stickies and typing in a label in large font and placing it in each desktop. It's not much but it'll do for now. Hope this satisfies in some way.

Here's how my mission control looks:

While this isn't perfect, I did find a solution that's fairly easy. First I created custome backgrounds for each desktop with the application icon and added some text. I then used System Prefferences to assign the background to the desktop I wanted to use for the application.

Next I launched the application and moved it to the correct desktop. Finally I set the application options to assign the application to only use that desktop.

This really help me now because it's easy to find the correct desktop now. If the application is not running I can tell which desktops are "reservered" for Photoshop or Illustrator. I can also quickly find my Dreamweaver desktop because for some reason Dreamweave does not give me a preview of the open windows when it's open. I'm always guessing which desktop it's on when switching between application.

As I said, it's not perfect but it's simple to set up and it works for my workflow. Hope this helps someone.

28,000 views = demand. What's the threshold for actually making a simple feature function update? Switching back over to "Desktop 1" now...

Support for naming desktops/workspaces could simply be really low on the master priority list -- or it is being delayed until some other, possibly seemingly irrelevant tech stuff gets done.

I think there's also this: No one really knows how to do this stuff, make it really easy for non-technical users to manage multiple desktops/workspaces, functional groups of application windows. It isn't clear to me how one could provide an easy, consistent, widely-acceptable, and completely confusion-proof User Interface (UI) for users to modify the labels. So, for the moment, I'm willing to accept the clunky labeling we've got.

Mission Control is a unique, special mode of UI operation, unlike any other. At the moment, while Mission Control is active, there's no provision for text input at all. Did Apple forget this possibillity -- or rule it out? I'm guessing they tried various possibilities, but all of them came up short.

Would you be happy with a new Control Panel that presented the current names of the desktops/workspaces as a list of editable text? I think I would, but I can guess that many more people would be unhappy, starting with the fact the CP couldn't be active while Mission Control is in (sorry) control.

For what it is worth, I feel the general trend is positive. My workflow has benefited since 10.6. Being able to name desktop/workspaces isn't essential to good getting value from Mission Control. Replacing a clunky labeling system with an annoying method of changing the labels would be a step backward, in my view.

All that said, yeah, I wish Apple would at least provide a system call for re-labeling. Maybe in 10.8...

Moving windows from one desktop to another is simple; too bad that you can't rename or rearrange those desktops, though!

You can’t rearrange or rename spaces, either: You get Desktop 1, Desktop 2, and so on, and that’s it. And, unlike earlier iterations of Spaces, you can’t arrange your desktops into a two-dimensional grid; you get that horizontal array only. (Hence the sideways-swipes you use to navigate from one space to another.)

leojv – that did it for me!

I always have 5+ projects going on at one time, and I like to dedicate a Desktop in Mission Control for each. Finally got to name them appropriately with TotalSpaces. I probably won't use any of the other features of TotalSpaces, but the renaming feature is perfect.

In the screencap below I made a "Home" desktop for my calendar, 'personal' Chrome window, etc.

Pasc62:

Tantalizing! It would be great if we could rename our workspaces/desktops.

I'm not sure what you are looking at, but I found this image on the MacOS X What is page, herewhich shows (left to right) workspaces/desktops named (1) Dashboard, (2) Desktop, (3) iPhoto, (4) Mail, (5) Calendar, with the notation

Handy Thumbnails

Full-screen apps and your desktops appear at the top of Mission Control.

Is this what you have in mind?

All those are the names of full-screen capable 10.7.x apps, yes? So I guess selecting one of those would get you to the full screen view of the corresponding app. Conspicuously missing from this example is a user-defined workspace/desktop, yes?

Note: I don't use full-screen mode at all, so I'm really not quite clear on this.

I'd label this "harmless marketing puffer." Sadly, I think the Apple marketing people generating this page felt a bit embarrassed about including one named rather uselessly, "Desktop 3" or similar. I agree! I can't blame them for generating the most positive image; that's their job. But I don't have to like the omission of a way to change the names of user-defined workspace/desktops. I don't!

Here's hoping there will be an improvement in 10.8.

You balanced insight is appreciated by this non-software professional.

I came up with my personal solution, I have created a image on photoshop that says "general", then I use that image for my desktop 1, and then sucessively, it works for me.

something strange really happens.

check this pic

http://i.imgur.com/GvPo4.jpg

Dont ask me how, that just happens. I don't know how you could get that intentionally

Is that a bug?

Found buddies encounting the same issue at:

http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-1104621.html

lujun wrote:

something strange really happens.

check this pic

http://i.imgur.com/GvPo4.jpg

Dont ask me how, that just happens. I don't know how you could get that intentionally

Is that a bug?

Found buddies encounting the same issue at:

http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-1104621.html

There is an option in the Mission Control preferences to automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use. This appears to be the system default and is likely the cause of this behaviour.

I've seen similar and it was a bug with a specific piece of software (in my case ChangeDesktop).

I've tried running Mail and Sparrow up together and can't reproduce this, perhaps you have something else installed that's not playing nice with Mission Control?

lujun wrote:

something strange really happens.

check this pic

http://i.imgur.com/GvPo4.jpg

This happened to me as well. It happened, when a full screen app needed to draw it's attention to the user, so it switched to it, and pulled the desktop next to it.

Could you explain how this happened cos I also encountered this before.

http://cl.ly/4tL2/img.png

This happens, when you open mission control, and then a new window opens. This happens with growl as well, and it is definitely a bug.

Mission Control has to be the dumbest thing that Apple ever came up with, and, forces it on us when pre-Lion Spaces worked perfectly. Mission Control = Argggg and Uggggg IMHO. Did I mention that trying to rename and rearrange spaces is a excersize in futility? What was Apple thinking??? Sheesh!!!