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strausd

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
2,998
1
Texas
Hey, I was wondering if there is a terminal command to make the animation of switching spaces faster. The animation is just way to slow, especially compared to how much quicker it was in Snow Leopard. Does anyone know how to do this?
 

djrod

macrumors 65816
Sep 16, 2008
1,012
33
Madrid - Spain
Hey, I was wondering if there is a terminal command to make the animation of switching spaces faster. The animation is just way to slow, especially compared to how much quicker it was in Snow Leopard. Does anyone know how to do this?

Are you using gestures or the keyboard? with my Magic Mouse is way faster than in Snow Leo using the keyboard, the faster you swipe, the faster the space switch
 

Ropie

macrumors regular
Aug 6, 2007
184
0
England
With the standard set of keyboard shortcuts, pressing ctrl and the number of the space you wish to switch to is faster than using ctrl and the arrow keys. Don't know if that helps you..?
 

strausd

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
2,998
1
Texas
Are you using gestures or the keyboard? with my Magic Mouse is way faster than in Snow Leo using the keyboard, the faster you swipe, the faster the space switch

I'm on a desktop and I'm not gonna waste $70 on a magic trackpad. I use control-arrow key, and the animation is so much slower than SL. I find my self ready to click before the animation is over. So before I can do anything, I have to wait for the stupid animation to finish.

Yes, using the number keys does provide a faster animation, but there's still a slow animation while using the arrows.
 

Doc69

macrumors 6502a
Dec 21, 2005
635
79
Confirmation from Apple

In Snow Leopard, you can use the Terminal command "defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-swoosh-animation-off -bool YES" to remove the space switching animation. However, the command does not work in Lion.

So I called Apple support last week to ask if there is anything that can be done about it. Today they called me back and said that the developers know that many users are unhappy with the slow animation in Lion, and that they are working on a fix in a future release. However, they did not give any details about how or when this might be done. They also confirmed that there are currently no Terminal commands that can turn it off or make it switch faster.

The extremely slow space switching animation in Lion when using CTRL+arrow keys is the main reason I had to go back to Snow Leopard (I'm switching 100s of times a day and the new animation make my head hurt). So I would really like to see Apple giving the user an option to turn it off.

If you would like to be able to do this too, please leave feedback to Apple at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
 

bully worm

macrumors regular
Sep 17, 2009
174
4
The animation seems fine to me =/

Here's a quick screencast of what it looks like on my MBP. I'm using CMD+1 to move left a space and CMD+2 to move right a space, then CMD+3 to move back to desktop 1.

http://tinypic.com/r/22j77q/7


EDIT:

Actually, if put your settings to this:

zD9iD.png


The animation is much much quicker! Try it.
 

3bs

macrumors 603
May 20, 2011
5,434
24
Dublin, Ireland
With the standard set of keyboard shortcuts, pressing ctrl and the number of the space you wish to switch to is faster than using ctrl and the arrow keys. Don't know if that helps you..?

Ropie is actually right. It is faster when you use command and a number than command and arrows!
 

Doc69

macrumors 6502a
Dec 21, 2005
635
79
Yes, using CTRL+number keys makes the animation faster, but it still makes my eyes and head hurt.

I often switch between workspaces several times per minute, and the reason the animation is more straining on the eyes in Lion than it was in Snow Leopard, is that now the desktop and menu bar moves as well. In 10.6 those were static and only the open windows moved. That was a much 'calmer' experience. And by using the Terminal command in 10.6, the animation can be removed completely which makes the switch instant.

When you work in front of the computer all day, gimmicks like this get old quickly. I don't want to be reminded of the OS when I'm working. And I especially don't want to be slowed down. Many of the animations in 10.7 slows things down considerably. For example, go to iCal and choose month view. Then click CMD+Right Arrow 5 times to go five months forward. You will only get 1 month forward as you have to wait for the animation to finish before you can go to a new month. That is pretty ridiculous. We should be able to easily turn these gimmicks off. They add nothing of value, imo.
 
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