Hey Mavericks, where did my multiple desktops go?!?

Mavericks allows the displays to be independant spaces allowing the two displays to show independant content, swipe to multiple desktops independantly, allowing the menu bar and dock to be used on either display.

If that does not fit your workflow, go to System Preferences > Mission Control and uncheck 'Displays have separate Spaces'.

This will return the display characteristics of Mountain Lion.

No, its one way or the other only.

Is there some virtual desktop implementation for the Mac now? Spaces was pretty feeble, but I could at least segregate my applications. Mission Control only allows me to select which application to bring to the top of the stack. The other stuff is all there, peeking out, cluttering what I'm trying to do.

You can setup as many desktops/spaces as you like and if you are using multiple displays, they can have their own separate desktops too.There are a couple of ways to set them up, depending how you work.

Many of Apple's apps and many third party apps have the option of Full Screen support. To use this, it is the icon in the top right of the app window of two diagonal arrows. When using that, the app automatically make its own desktop. No other app that ca share it, and nothing hides behind that app.

This implemtation is Ok, but I tend not to use it on a large display, as I don't need one app taking up my full 24" display. I do tend to use it on my 11" MacBook Air where display real estate is much more necessary.

Otherwise, you can create multiple desktops AND assign particular apps to those desktops, so they have their own desktop space. To initally create a new desktop, go into Mission Control, move the mouse cursor to near the top right corner and a '+' will appear (or just drag an app window there) and tap on the '+' and new desktop is created.

You an drag app windows to desktops within Mission Control. They should launch there from then on, but I find that function buggy in Mavericks.

If you assign an app to a desktop using the Dock, Control-click the app icon and select Options > Assign to Desktop (of your choice) then that app will always open on that desktop.

Going between desktops is easy, go to Mission control and click on the desktop at the top, or gesture on a trackpad using a side swipe with the number of fingers asigned in System Preferences > Trackpad, or Control-Arrow keys also works, your choice.

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Thanks for the detailed description. That multiple virtual desktops were supported wasn't at all obvious from my initial exploration.

This is terrible, and annoying.

Using the option to allow desktops to be their own spaces, I end up with dozens of desktops after plugging and unplugging the Thunderbolt display I use at work for several weeks. It's more of an annoyance than anything else, but Mac seems to be really bad about keeping two different wallpapers for two different displays. The one for my MBP keeps "leaking" over to the Thunderbolt display, despite me never ever once having set this wallpaper to that display.

I keep thinking that the next 10.9.x update will fix it, but it looks like that is just the way it is.