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Which one do you prefer?

  • Mission Control

    Votes: 47 37.6%
  • Exposé + Spaces

    Votes: 78 62.4%

  • Total voters
    125

baryon

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 3, 2009
3,875
2,922
Do you prefer Mission Control, or Exposé + Spaces as it was before Lion? Answer the poll above.
 

wikus

macrumors 68000
Jun 1, 2011
1,795
2
Planet earth.
All-applications and all-windows at once is the reason why Expose is superior.

I'm still on Snow Leopard because of expose and wont switch to lion until it brings customization... aka options and choice. until then, mission control is complete crap.
 

Tmelon

macrumors 65816
Feb 26, 2011
1,149
619
I found Expose and Spaces to be much more functional, but those are gone now so oh well. Mission Control isn't the best, but after using Lion/Mountain Lion for a year now I can get used to it.
 

boilingpoint

macrumors member
May 18, 2011
67
3
Whenever people asked me what in OSX is better than Windows, my first answer was 'Expose'.

After 10.7, if someone ask me the same question, I could not recommend MC.

Stupid apple engineers do not know what is the merit in their product.:rolleyes:
 

MartiNZ

macrumors 65816
Apr 10, 2008
1,221
124
Auckland, New Zealand
Well I think some of them must have, but maybe these things have changed hands? They have certainly giveneth, and now they have takeneth away. And capped many of us at SL/W7.
 

tkermit

macrumors 68040
Feb 20, 2004
3,581
2,833
I have only started using multiple desktops in Lion. Spaces somehow never clicked with me. I did really enjoy Exposé though, but one of the things I liked most about it was the fact that its original version from the Panther and Tiger days kept relative window sizes intact, and generally used the screen space more efficiently than Exposé from Leopard on. I feel like Mission Control, considering the Spaces integration, is overall an improvement over the Leopard/SL version of Exposé, since relative window sizes have returned, picking out windows belonging to applications with 1-3 windows open among applications with huge amounts of windows has become much easier, and windows are possibly easier to identify by being able to see the associated app icon. My usage has shifted so that I now use App Exposé much more often for apps with lots of windows open. Mission Control stops making sense in that case unless the app's window you're looking for is one of the most recently used ones.
 

klaxamazoo

macrumors 6502
Sep 8, 2006
438
0
I have only started using multiple desktops in Lion. Spaces somehow never clicked with me. I did really enjoy Exposé though, but one of the things I liked most about it was the fact that its original version from the Panther and Tiger days kept relative window sizes intact, and generally used the screen space more efficiently than Exposé from Leopard on. I feel like Mission Control, considering the Spaces integration, is overall an improvement over the Leopard/SL version of Exposé, since relative window sizes have returned, picking out windows belonging to applications with 1-3 windows open among applications with huge amounts of windows has become much easier, and windows are possibly easier to identify by being able to see the associated app icon. My usage has shifted so that I now use App Exposé much more often for apps with lots of windows open. Mission Control stops making sense in that case unless the app's window you're looking for is one of the most recently used ones.

I've seen a number of people say that Spaces never clicked with them until Mission Control, I think MC is more inviting than Spaces since it merges Expose at the same time. That makes it more likely that users are going to try it out a little more. Also, maintaining the desktop background probably makes it a little more clear how it is supposed to be used. It is definitely more inviting, I just find it less usable for my needs.

I agree that the grid set up of 10.6 was a big step backwards and preferred the 10.5 proportional layout. Luckily there was a really simple hack to bring back a 10.5 style Expose in 10.6. If only Mission Control actually spread out the Windows instead of moving them 25 px.
 

tkermit

macrumors 68040
Feb 20, 2004
3,581
2,833
If only Mission Control actually spread out the Windows instead of moving them 25 px.

Yeah, I'm still kind of baffled by their decision to implement it like that, since the solution scales so badly with the number of windows… not quite sure what they were going for there…

EDIT: I just realized that you probably weren't talking about the view you get when you perform the scrolling gesture over a window group – that's what I was thinking of. If they changed that to an App Exposé style view, that would be an improvement in my book.

EDIT2: Or, you know, just give us an option to decide for ourselves whether we want to see our windows grouped by application or not. But I guess that's not how Apple rolls... ;)
 
Last edited:

jackeill

macrumors member
May 2, 2010
36
0
Leopard Expose > Mission Control > Snow Leopard Expose

I really couldn't stand not keeping the relative size of windows in SL. Mission Control fixes that and overall is quite ok, but would be even better if:
1. it was better optimised for using space on the screen
2. there was option to disable windows grouping
3. there was better grouping of windows (more than 3 grouped - it looks awful and is not usable)

I like the app icons very much.
 

klaxamazoo

macrumors 6502
Sep 8, 2006
438
0
Yeah, I'm still kind of baffled by their decision to implement it like that, since the solution scales so badly with the number of windows… not quite sure what they were going for there…

EDIT: I just realized that you probably weren't talking about the view you get when you perform the scrolling gesture over a window group – that's what I was thinking of. If they changed that to an App Exposé style view, that would be an improvement in my book.

EDIT2: Or, you know, just give us an option to decide for ourselves whether we want to see our windows grouped by application or not. But I guess that's not how Apple rolls... ;)


No, you were right. I was talking about the slight spreading you get with the scrolling gesture. How someone decided that was enough and how their manager approved it is beyond me.

Just make the gesture usable and that solves half the problem (the other half being MC only showing you one Desktop at a time)


If you miss Expose/Spaces please visit the ReSpaceApp website: switchfoot.com and show your support. The developer is extremely responsive and will probably support 10.5 style Expose if we voice it properly.
 

InuNacho

macrumors 68000
Apr 24, 2008
1,998
1,248
In that one place
I agree that the grid set up of 10.6 was a big step backwards and preferred the 10.5 proportional layout. Luckily there was a really simple hack to bring back a 10.5 style Expose in 10.6. If only Mission Control actually spread out the Windows instead of moving them 25 px.

I never knew about the old Expose hack until now and to be honest I adjusted almost instantly to the 10.6 version. I've never really had more than 30 or so windows open at once so its pretty easy for me to navigate them based on the image and not size.
I actually prefer the little windows in the bottom for minimized things in the dock.

Not saying the Leopard expose was bad or anything, heck I might give it a whirl just to see all my stuff look different.
 

Drew017

macrumors 65816
May 29, 2011
1,254
11
East coast, USA
I like mission control better because of its integration with Lion. It may be that I just am an all-in-one kind of person. Exposé seems a bit less organized to me.
 

kemo

macrumors 6502a
Oct 29, 2008
821
201
Reason why I'm still on SL is Expose/Spaces. Is it that hard to include "old" code in new OS? Come on Apple, I would be really interested in reason why this was just REMOVED. Couldn't they just add Mission control next to Expose and make it up to the user what he gonna use? :rolleyes:
 

talmy

macrumors 601
Oct 26, 2009
4,725
332
Oregon
Needs a Both/Neither choice.

Exposé and Spaces always seemed like independent features. Mission Control includes sorta-exposé and sorta-spaces as well as Full Screen as one integrated feature. I don't see how Lion's Full screen, which creates a new space for each, could have been incorporated into the gridded Spaces.

That said, looking at Exposé/Spaces versus MissonControl/FullScreen, I like the former on my 27" iMac with an external display because neither Mission Control nor Lion Full Screen work properly with multiple monitors. On small screen MacBooks MissionControl/FullScreen works great. I find myself using MissionControl/FullScreen far more often than I had used Exposé (never) and Spaces (occasionally).
 

WSR

macrumors regular
Jun 9, 2011
249
2
I don't see why Apple couldn't give us the choice between SL's Expose/Spaces/Full-Screen and lion's. Yes I know that in SL Full-Screen mode was dependent in the app's version of it, but most apps went Full-Screen in the same space leaving the desktop behind it.

Since SL's Expose is just a way of viewing the window's in the current Space, at least this part of SL's Expose can exist side-by-side with Lion's MC.

As far as Spaces and FullScreen mode, there is no reason that Apple couldn't give us a preference option of either Classic Spaces/Full-Screen or Lion's Spaces/Full-Screen.

I wish that instead of attacking each other over which is better as has happened on other threads of this forum, we would unite in letting Apple know that the users want the choice between the 2. I don't want those who like MC to have it removed from them as Leopard's and SL's Expose/Spaces was removed from those of us that want it.
 

haravikk

macrumors 65816
May 1, 2005
1,499
21
I genuinely prefer Mission Control for a variety of reasons, one of which being that it makes Spaces more accessible.

That said, it needs a number of minor tweaks, which Apple so far has shown no willingness to spend time on. Things like a quick way to switch from all-windows to application-windows view so we can expand the grouped windows in a useful way; or even just LaunchPad style display of grouped windows as if they were a folder.


It needs work, but IMO it's the better solution overall, it just shouldn't have been released in its current state; it's like no-one with a real workflow actually tried using it during development.
 

wikus

macrumors 68000
Jun 1, 2011
1,795
2
Planet earth.
I wish there was an OPTION for the following;

1) to get rid of spaces from showing up. I dont use them, ever.
2) ungroup windows so it gives Expose functionality back for multitaskers.

Until that happens, Lion is a failure/write off.
 
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