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Re-arrange desktops/fullscreen apps with Mission Control?

N

NameUndecided

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 28, 2011
751
68
Okay, now that we have (or, I've just found out about, if it's not actually new) the ability to add new desktops in Mission Control, my want to re-arrange the order of the fullscreen apps and any additional desktops has grown.

It seems like such an intuitive feature, the ability to re-order the windows shown in the top bar while in Mission Control. If it's at all possible though, the method of doing so apparently isn't intuitive at all. It's fun to swipe from the desktop to Safari and to the many PDFs that I'll have open at a time, but it would be even nicer if I had more control over their order.

Might anyone have any tips?

Another feature that I hope gets added in -- the ability to set a default background for however many "new" desktops that you might open. For instance: Set the default background for "desktop 2" and set a separate default background for "desktop 3" and so on.
 
mrblack927

mrblack927

macrumors 6502a
Aug 19, 2008
841
34
Absolutely. I was thinking the same thing. It seems like such an obvious feature: click and drag to rearrange spaces.

My only fear is that Apple might think their own way of automatically rearranging spaces is "better" and not give you the option. If you notice, your spaces will change order based on the order in which you use your applications (now an option in the system prefs menu under "mission control"). Interesting that they let to OS change the order, but not the user. :rolleyes:
 
N

NanoGeek

macrumors newbie
Jul 21, 2011
1
0
I found a (sorta clumsy) way to rearrange the apps. Go to the first desktop, and click an icon for a full screen app in the dock. It will then put that app at the front of the line of full screen apps. Hope that helps.
 
P

paulold

macrumors 6502
Mar 3, 2008
401
5
Washington, DC
Keep in mind that there's a setting to put the most recent used full screen app to the left (unless you turn that off in the preferences). So that suggestion NanaGeek is just making use of that feature. I think the only way to select your order is to put them into full screen mode in the order you want them to appear while also turning off the auto-arrange feature that moves the most recent app to the first place.
 
fisherking

fisherking

macrumors G4
Jul 16, 2010
11,073
5,424
ny somewhere
it's almost shocking that we can't reorder spaces as we want, in the top of the window in mission control, but...think how long it took for apple to implement this with safari tabs).

10.7.1? will hold my breath (or until there's a shareware app to do this)...

hate it the way it is... :(
 
P

paulold

macrumors 6502
Mar 3, 2008
401
5
Washington, DC
Sure it would be nicer if Apple let us rearrange things in Mission Control like icons on the iPhone (and now the Launchpad) but it just takes a moment to set things up the way you want them and you're done. And with the Resume feature, you won't have to mess with this very often.

All I did was I turned off full screen mode on all the apps I had it set to. I then chose the order along the top of Mission Control by setting each app to full screen mode in the order I want them to appear from left to right. So I wanted Mail first, then Safari, then iTunes, etc. which means I set Mail to full screen first, then safari then iTunes.

So now my Mission Control looks like: Dashboard, Desktop, Mail, Safari, iTunes, etc. I suppose it gets a little more complicated when you start wanting to assign non-full-screen apps to their own desktop. I think all of the desktops you create will appear between the dashboard and the full screen apps. So I suppose that might annoy some.

One thing that annoys me a little is Address Book is not a full screen app (plus I can't customize its appearance - I don't really like the new look of it). I would prefer to keep it open as a full screen app next to my Calendar, but I can't do that. Bummer.

I never used Spaces before but I am already loving being able to switch between apps using a sideways swipe. So simple and logical. Thanks, Apple!
 
yashrg

yashrg

macrumors regular
Feb 21, 2008
135
13
I can't believe Apple was so stupid to not make this possible.
 
natd1993

natd1993

macrumors regular
Jul 6, 2011
140
50
Great Britain
I can confirm that in the latest beta of 10.7.2, you can rearrange full screen apps and desktops by clicking and dragging on mission control.
 
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