For Mission Control Experts

[ks-man]

A bunch of the early reviews around here said that it takes time to learn and appreciate Mission Control, but once you learn it is better than Spaces.

Judging by the vitriol being hurled its way it seems that there are a bunch of people who have yet to cross the learning curve and I must admit that I'm one of them.

I find myself always hitting Ctrl+1 for Mail and Ctrl+2 for Chrome but those don't seem to work if an application is full screen or if I quit Chrome (set to Desktop 2) and then open something else on Desktop 2 (and after having re-opened Chrome).

I like to have all my apps on separate Desktops (or Spaces). In an ideal world for me I would have Mail on 1, Chrome on 2, Safari on 3 and about 3 other applications on the next 3. Then any new application would create a Desktop for it and if I quit an application it would remove an application.

So for the experts, is this possible? If not, how are you using Mission Control. I really hate it at the moment. I hope that with time I'll learn to use it and appreciate extra functionality, but for the moment I can't see anything that Mission Control offers that I didn't get with Spaces+Expose. I'm not like some of the others declaring Lion a failure b/c of this. I'll learn to live with it but I'm hoping some experts around here could help me adapt a little quicker.

Thanks.

 

[lukei4655]

Keyboard v. Trackpad

What may be at issue here is how one interfaces with Mac OS. If you are a hands-on-keyboard type of person then I don't see how Mission Control will be too helpful. However, if you are a hands-off person who primarily uses the trackpad, or are like myself (hybrid) then Mission Control is wonderful.

There is a way to do what you are suggesting though it doesn't seem as if you can assigning a particular ^ + 'Number' to each space. Instead in you can access Mission Control with ^ + 'Up Arrow' and then use ^ + '1, 2, 3, etc' to switch to the open desktops and full screen apps. The assignment is automatic starting from left to right.

It doesn't seem as if you can order them according to your own preference at this point. However, it would be nice to have that freedom. I'm surprised that it is not currently a feature.

 

[baryon]

If Apple let us rearrange the spaces as we wanted, it would be fine. There would still be the problem of not being able to see what the spaces contain as the thumbnails are much too small, as well as the problem of not being able to locate which space you're currently on (the big one in the middle isn't always the one you're on, and in addition, you don't necessarily see which one that is among all the small thumbnails, thus you don't know what's on the left/right of it).

 

[randomerratum]

I'm loving Mission Control. I can see how it'd be hard to let go of a comfortable workflow, but I think for a lot of us - Mission Control is going to be a huge improvement.

It sort of 'forces' you to let Lion organize for you. I'm doing different things at work every day, so I found Spaces a bit disorienting and did little to keep me organized. Rather then keeping things neatly separated, spaces seemed to just give me more space to clutter up or lose things!

I know that's a personal issue - but I think that's the secret to Mission Control (and full screen apps). Now I've just let go, stopped concerning myself with adhering to a workflow and everything just ends up where I think it is! The spaces reorder themselves in order of usage which really helps... although it seems to not update sometimes... ?

 

[ks-man]

I'm loving Mission Control. I can see how it'd be hard to let go of a comfortable workflow, but I think for a lot of us - Mission Control is going to be a huge improvement.

It sort of 'forces' you to let Lion organize for you. I'm doing different things at work every day, so I found Spaces a bit disorienting and did little to keep me organized. Rather then keeping things neatly separated, spaces seemed to just give me more space to clutter up or lose things!

I know that's a personal issue - but I think that's the secret to Mission Control (and full screen apps). Now I've just let go, stopped concerning myself with adhering to a workflow and everything just ends up where I think it is! The spaces reorder themselves in order of usage which really helps... although it seems to not update sometimes... ?

I guess the two questions I have are:

!) If I like to always have new applications open in a new Desktop, can I set this somewhere? I may be on a desktop with an app open. I don't want to need to find a new Desktop before opening the new app, I want to just open the app and let Lion go to the nearest open Desktop to launch the app.

2) Do you always have to switch to Mission Control to find the Desktop that an app is in that you want to go to? If I'm in Chrome, I won't know which desktop Mail or iTunes will be in. In the past I would hit Ctrl 1 for Mail and Ctrl 8 for iTunes. This became so repetitive that I could do it in my sleep and took no thought. Now if I'm on Chrome I find I either have to open up Mission Control and search for where iTunes is or else scroll both ways through a few Desktops to find iTunes. Both ways take a lot more thought and bring me out of what I'm doing. I guess I could Ctrl + Tab and cycle through my apps, but again that takes more time and thought rather than naturally finding the proper Desktop quickly.

 

[gentlefury]

What may be at issue here is how one interfaces with Mac OS. If you are a hands-on-keyboard type of person then I don't see how Mission Control will be too helpful. However, if you are a hands-off person who primarily uses the trackpad, or are like myself (hybrid) then Mission Control is wonderful.

There is a way to do what you are suggesting though it doesn't seem as if you can assigning a particular ^ + 'Number' to each space. Instead in you can access Mission Control with ^ + 'Up Arrow' and then use ^ + '1, 2, 3, etc' to switch to the open desktops and full screen apps. The assignment is automatic starting from left to right.

It doesn't seem as if you can order them according to your own preference at this point. However, it would be nice to have that freedom. I'm surprised that it is not currently a feature.

I used to be a keyboard centric user and would get annoyed when I had to touch the mouse....as time has gone tho I have started to use the mouse more and Lion really makes the keyboard even less needed and I really love it! Makes it a LOT more ergonomic.

 

[ks-man]

I used to be a keyboard centric user and would get annoyed when I had to touch the mouse....as time has gone tho I have started to use the mouse more and Lion really makes the keyboard even less needed and I really love it! Makes it a LOT more ergonomic.

I still don't know. I have a Magic Trackpad for my iMac and a Touchpad on my MBA. I don't really understand how I can simply swap between programs and to new programs without being brought out of the experience of just working...

 

[gentlefury]

I still don't know. I have a Magic Trackpad for my iMac and a Touchpad on my MBA. I don't really understand how I can simply swap between programs and to new programs without being brought out of the experience of just working...

I find myself thinking less about the os and more about what I'm doing as a result. If I had to push a key combination to make something happen I would have to actually think about what I'm pressing...with the gestures there is really no thought needed...need to go to the next screen, 2 finger swipe left. Need to go to the last page in safari 1 finger swipe right to move the current page off the stack.

On a trackpad I find the 3 finger up swipe for mission control to be very comfortable...2 finger tap on magic mouse is a little weird but not bad.

 

[ks-man]

I find myself thinking less about the os and more about what I'm doing as a result. If I had to push a key combination to make something happen I would have to actually think about what I'm pressing...with the gestures there is really no thought needed...need to go to the next screen, 2 finger swipe left. Need to go to the last page in safari 1 finger swipe right to move the current page off the stack.

On a trackpad I find the 3 finger up swipe for mission control to be very comfortable...2 finger tap on magic mouse is a little weird but not bad.

So do you use Mission Control to switch between Apps? Essentially clicking on the Desktop after you locate the one the App you want is on? I guess that would work but so many apps look the same to me and the pictures are small so I have to focus quite a bit to find the one I'm looking for.

 

[DevDav]

Assign an app

I guess the two questions I have are:

!) If I like to always have new applications open in a new Desktop, can I set this somewhere? I may be on a desktop with an app open. I don't want to need to find a new Desktop before opening the new app, I want to just open the app and let Lion go to the nearest open Desktop to launch the app.

2) Do you always have to switch to Mission Control to find the Desktop that an app is in that you want to go to? If I'm in Chrome, I won't know which desktop Mail or iTunes will be in. In the past I would hit Ctrl 1 for Mail and Ctrl 8 for iTunes. This became so repetitive that I could do it in my sleep and took no thought. Now if I'm on Chrome I find I either have to open up Mission Control and search for where iTunes is or else scroll both ways through a few Desktops to find iTunes. Both ways take a lot more thought and bring me out of what I'm doing. I guess I could Ctrl + Tab and cycle through my apps, but again that takes more time and thought rather than naturally finding the proper Desktop quickly.

By going down to the launch and performing a two finger click, you can assign an application to a particular space/desktop via options.

You can also go to system preferences, then Mission Control preferences and uncheck 'automatically re-arrange spaces based on most recent use.

If you combine those preferences with a preference of 'when switching to an application switch to a space with open windows for the application' you can affectively hotkey between spaces/desktops.

 

[ks-man]

By going down to the launch and performing a two finger click, you can assign an application to a particular space/desktop via options.

You can also go to system preferences, then Mission Control preferences and uncheck 'automatically re-arrange spaces based on most recent use.

If you combine those preferences with a preference of 'when switching to an application switch to a space with open windows for the application' you can affectively hotkey between spaces/desktops.

I'll give this a try. Thanks. Something I noticed a few days ago. On my MBA which I upgraded from Snow Leopard I could secondary click on the dock and it would ask me if I wanted to open on "This Desktop" or "Desktop 4". On my iMac which I clean installed I lost the option for "Desktop 4" and only had "This Desktop". Anybody else see this?

 

[QuarterSwede]

I still don't know. I have a Magic Trackpad for my iMac and a Touchpad on my MBA. I don't really understand how I can simply swap between programs and to new programs without being brought out of the experience of just working...

My problem is that Mission Control's gestures don't work on pre-multitouch trackpads (C2D MacBook) so I'm forced to use the keyboard hotkeys. I was a Spaces poweruser and very visual so going to Mission Control takes away what I really loved. I feel constrained on MC because it's all vertical. So now instead of being able to use one key combo (Ctrl+Right, Left, Down) to get to three spaces I now I have use one to go to the right a space and then another to move to another one and so on. I realize I can still use Ctrl+1,2,etc. to do the same but it certainly isn't as easy. Without a multi-touch trackpad it's rough. ... if only I could use my iPhone as a multi-touch trackpad and have use of the gestures.

Fullscreen apps are really ticking me off now. I don't want it to be it's own space. However, I figured out that you can close the space it comes from and it won't create a space when you back out of fullscreen and go back in. I really like Lion so far so hopefully I'll be able to get used to this quickly.