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I don't want to tell you that you are wrong because it is just opinion, but I thought that previous versions of exposé were pretty broken. I think Mission Control is fairly broken as well, but less so.

No way. Mission Control's handling of window display is objectively worse than the old expose. The entire *point* of expose was to unlayer your windows and tile them. Mission Control actively does the opposite and will layer your windows of the same app, even if they previously were not layered.
 
The OP is exactly what I feel. Mission Control sucks. Spaces + Exposé was awesome. This is not a new way of doing things, this is a way of not doing what we could previously easily do.

At least let us freaking rearrange the spaces, and drag windows from one space to the other without having to view the given space.

I also don't like that the current space is big, in the middle, and the other spaces (including the current one) are small at the top. I just simply never see where the hell I am and which space I'm in. The only indication is the tiny white border around the thumbnail. In the old Spaces, you ZOOMED OUT of your space and the other spaces were around it, where they belong. You SAW your spaces, not a thumbnail representation of them.
 
The biggest issue I have with it is you cannot see all your windows open at once. You can only do that in 1 space. So say you have 10 spaces open, you have to go through each one in MC in order to find the window you are looking for. This can slow people down significantly!

Also, you can't rearrange spaces, can't drag windows from space to space (only from the current one you are in which is EXTREMELY limiting), and its awful with multiple monitors. IMO, major step back.

Well, Spaces was a train wreck in the first place, so making a useless feature more useless... is that a bad thing?
 
Well, Spaces was a train wreck in the first place, so making a useless feature more useless... is that a bad thing?

For me, Spaces/Expose in 10.5/10.6 was the primary reason to switch from Windows to OS X. Expose/Spaces was a necessity for those of us with work that requires a lot of Applications and windows open at the same time. Window management was the largest difference between XP/Vista and OS X. Mission Control makes windows management almost impossible. It is still possible to find you window but you can no longer manage the windows properly.
 
For me, Spaces/Expose in 10.5/10.6 was the primary reason to switch from Windows to OS X. Expose/Spaces was a necessity for those of us with work that requires a lot of Applications and windows open at the same time. Window management was the largest difference between XP/Vista and OS X. Mission Control makes windows management almost impossible. It is still possible to find you window but you can no longer manage the windows properly.

I switched much earlier, but I agree with you. Expose made the handling of many windows so much better.

Unfortunately, I suppose Apple wants to push the iOS paradigm of full screen apps also to OSX. In my opinion that is OK for small laptop screens (11"-13") but not for larger workstation screens. And the fact that mission control is focused around full screen apps is a strong indication for this. I guess Apple will not change/revise this in future updates. They are very ignorant when it comes to such usability things. They tend to push users in the direction they believe is 'right'.
Saying that, I am still annoyed that in ten years the did not change the widgets for closing, minimizing, enlarging of windows. Three small bullets of 5mm diameter? This can only work if you turned your trackpad/mouse speed to 'snail-mode'. ;-)
 
For me, Spaces/Expose in 10.5/10.6 was the primary reason to switch from Windows to OS X. Expose/Spaces was a necessity for those of us with work that requires a lot of Applications and windows open at the same time. Window management was the largest difference between XP/Vista and OS X. Mission Control makes windows management almost impossible. It is still possible to find you window but you can no longer manage the windows properly.

How is Spaces beneficial? It defeats the purpose of Expose, as with Expose, you can just find the window(s) you need instead of arbitrarily breaking them up into Spaces. The problem that I have with Spaces is that you end up having to spend time assigning windows to Spaces, and then you lose windows in another Space, and then you end up clicking on it's app icon in the dock, which rockets you off to another space, and you lose track of what you were working on in the first place. It's just a disaster of a window management system. I played with it for five minutes, in which minute one was "OH COOL!" minute two was "what the heck do I do with this", and minutes 3 through five were coming to the conclusion "this is such a PITA".
 
Superfluous? A bit.

I like Lion. Sometimes! All of it's new features are cool. Sometimes!! It's a really shiny product, which can be a bit excessive.

I dislike the animations when switching desktops because it takes too long. It's like it re-creates the next desktop—as opposed to before where it just slid in the apps from the next desktop. It slowly slides to the next desktop—but some of the windows are already loaded, thank god—then it slowly fades in the background icons, then it's ready to use.

I mean, it looks really cool when I do it, but when I'm trying to find a specific window, it takes too long to load the next desktop—and because of this sometimes it doesn't even register that I've already told it to go to the next desktop.

It's annoying that we all have to slow down so that Apple can show off it's flashiness.
 
Super Useful!!!

How is Spaces beneficial? It defeats the purpose of Expose, as with Expose, you can just find the window(s) you need instead of arbitrarily breaking them up into Spaces. The problem that I have with Spaces is that you end up having to spend time assigning windows to Spaces, and then you lose windows in another Space, and then you end up clicking on it's app icon in the dock, which rockets you off to another space, and you lose track of what you were working on in the first place. It's just a disaster of a window management system. I played with it for five minutes, in which minute one was "OH COOL!" minute two was "what the heck do I do with this", and minutes 3 through five were coming to the conclusion "this is such a PITA".

Neither Spaces nor Exposé cancel each other out. In fact, I used them as compliments. For example, I would have all programming stuff in one space. In an other space, I would put all sorts of references, API, browser, and stuff. Then, I would have iTunes and other distractions in yet another space. Then—this is where I would use Exposé—if I wanted to look for a specific window within a certain Space, I would use Exposé. Or if I wanted to move a window—and position it somewhere specific—to another Space, I could use Exposé while in the Spaces Overview.

Basically, it was AMAZING window management!!! You could arrange different work areas, find stuff from all Spaces, move them exactly where you wanted them—all in a snap. So you could actually get work done!!!
 
Well, Spaces was a train wreck in the first place, so making a useless feature more useless... is that a bad thing?

Wow, that could possibly be the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

I consider Mission Control a dumbed down version of the Exposé-Spaces combo because it was a little on the more advanced side for the average consumer, I take it you fit into that category. So you probably never used it and saw why it was so beneficial to those who did make use of it.

How is Spaces beneficial? It defeats the purpose of Expose, as with Expose, you can just find the window(s) you need instead of arbitrarily breaking them up into Spaces. The problem that I have with Spaces is that you end up having to spend time assigning windows to Spaces, and then you lose windows in another Space, and then you end up clicking on it's app icon in the dock, which rockets you off to another space, and you lose track of what you were working on in the first place. It's just a disaster of a window management system. I played with it for five minutes, in which minute one was "OH COOL!" minute two was "what the heck do I do with this", and minutes 3 through five were coming to the conclusion "this is such a PITA".

I take it you never used spaces and expose together...

When used together, they were beautiful. Expose let you see all your windows in your current space, absolutely amazing. Spaces let you organize a virtual monitor that you could switch to in a fraction of a second to then start working with a variety of different apps at once. Say you have a lot of these virtual monitors set up because what you do demands a lot of applications open in a certain layout, especially with multiple monitors. This is where spaces shines. It is also where keeping spaces and expose separate shine as well. You can use expose inside of spaces to see all your windows you currently have open in every space! You can't do this with lion, you would have to go through each desktop individually, slowing people down significantly when looking for a specific window.

Spaces and expose helped keep the more advanced users organized and help them work much faster. But Steve is a minimalist, and I honestly can't see him having more than 3 windows open at once: safari, iCal, and mail. He's definitely not a power user in my opinion.
 
Spaces left me cold. Tried to use it but never got on with it. MC is much better IMHO. Except the four fingers and thumb gesture. Can anyone get that right? :confused:
 
Is it that hard to go directly to App Expose and then cmd-tab between apps? It doesn't leave Expose and you never even have to open your dreaded Mission Control.

It's harder that way I guess. Mission Control shouldn't be avoided! I use it and I'm loving it, the only problem is, as everyone said, windows are grouped... If only we could click the group of windows, instead of just one from the group, and then see every window within that group spread on the screen, that would be perfect for me! Just one more click, but who cares? I could have everything ready for access faster, from within mission control!

I just read about a neat trick I was unaware of in another thread here at MR. Double tapping on an app in the Dock with the Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad will invoke App Exposé for that app.

This effectively reduces the process to one single step.

I feel for those folks who really preferred the old Exposé though. I think Apple should offer that as an option at least. I finally realized unchecking "Show Dashboard as a space" in Mission Control settings reverted Dashboard to the way it was in Snow Leopard and I much prefer it that way.
 
Wow, that could possibly be the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

I consider Mission Control a dumbed down version of the Exposé-Spaces combo because it was a little on the more advanced side for the average consumer, I take it you fit into that category. So you probably never used it and saw why it was so beneficial to those who did make use of it.



I take it you never used spaces and expose together...

When used together, they were beautiful. Expose let you see all your windows in your current space, absolutely amazing. Spaces let you organize a virtual monitor that you could switch to in a fraction of a second to then start working with a variety of different apps at once. Say you have a lot of these virtual monitors set up because what you do demands a lot of applications open in a certain layout, especially with multiple monitors. This is where spaces shines. It is also where keeping spaces and expose separate shine as well. You can use expose inside of spaces to see all your windows you currently have open in every space! You can't do this with lion, you would have to go through each desktop individually, slowing people down significantly when looking for a specific window.

Spaces and expose helped keep the more advanced users organized and help them work much faster. But Steve is a minimalist, and I honestly can't see him having more than 3 windows open at once: safari, iCal, and mail. He's definitely not a power user in my opinion.

I'm actually a fairly advanced computer user, I just hate having to micro-manage Spaces so that I can have these "cool" little spaces of windows. It's just silly. It also makes it a pain to close stuff down. I would find it very easy to lose windows too, it's easier to just have Expose, and now, doing a better job, Mission Control, just handle them all in one big lump, so I can find what I want, and so I know how messy I am getting, and that when I start to have too many windows, I should probably go on a Window-killing spree.
 
Also, the "Cloud" is helping to make Window management a little easier. Since Email, Calendar, and the like now run in the browser, there is less and less need for excessive windows. If PDFs would freaking open in the browser on the Mac, it would really clean up the windowing too, as a lot of the problem on the Mac is Preview.
 
Another great tip that some might not know for selecting Spaces in Mission Control:

Holding Option while clicking on a Desktop or a Full Screen application will bring that Desktop/Application into focus, but keep you in Mission Control.

Courtesy of Mac OS X Hints.
 
In actual fact I find no need for Mission Control, or spaces - just invoke the auto-hide command on a permanent basis with this tip:

http://zhangw.com/wp/2008/12/auto-hide-others-on-mac-os-x/

Now all your dock icons are shown slightly faded apart from the active one, which is the only visible application. Clicking on a 'hidden' icon brings that application to the fore and hides the one previously shown. To temporarily override chose 'Show All' from the main menu in any application. :)
 
I'm another one of those Expose+Space power users I guess. I use it along with Witch to do all of my task switching and window management. I usually have at least 8-10 apps open at one time along with using multiple monitors. Using the Expose+Spaces view lets me completely manage where things are and easily drop windows on other monitors. I haven't taken the leap to Lion but the inability to go into a spaces view and drop a window on a second monitor is really a deal-breaker for me.

Even with 12+ windows open at one time I can hit a corner and do a 4-finger swipe down to see all of my open windows. I also like the ability to do an all-app Expose view and see minimized windows as well, which apparently Lion cannot do.
 
I'm actually a fairly advanced computer user, I just hate having to micro-manage Spaces so that I can have these "cool" little spaces of windows. It's just silly. It also makes it a pain to close stuff down. I would find it very easy to lose windows too, it's easier to just have Expose, and now, doing a better job, Mission Control, just handle them all in one big lump, so I can find what I want, and so I know how messy I am getting, and that when I start to have too many windows, I should probably go on a Window-killing spree.

Its not micromanaging, its organizing your windows so you can work quicker. I just hold down command-tab and when the app I want to quit is selected, I let go of tab while still holding down command and press "q", its extremely quick, try it sometime. And having Exposé in combination with Spaces is what made them so powerful, Mission Control kills it.
 
Its not micromanaging, its organizing your windows so you can work quicker. I just hold down command-tab and when the app I want to quit is selected, I let go of tab while still holding down command and press "q", its extremely quick, try it sometime. And having Exposé in combination with Spaces is what made them so powerful, Mission Control kills it.

It is micromanaging, since you have to move a window to a Space, and that takes time that's not saved back, since there's also additional overhead to switching between spaces as opposed to just using one.

You can't always just kill a program, I'll often have stuff that I want to keep open or need to save or do something else with while cleaning it up, so I do have to see each window before closing.
 
It is micromanaging, since you have to move a window to a Space, and that takes time that's not saved back, since there's also additional overhead to switching between spaces as opposed to just using one.

You can't always just kill a program, I'll often have stuff that I want to keep open or need to save or do something else with while cleaning it up, so I do have to see each window before closing.

No, its not micromanaging when I already have the apps to open in certain spaces. And a quick keyboard shortcut to switch to a different space with a 5 apps perfectly organized in 2 monitors is A MILLION TIMES faster than going and clicking on each icon in the dock for them all to pull up and then resizing them.

I think it's pretty obvious you weren't a real spaces user.
 
It is micromanaging, since you have to move a window to a Space, and that takes time that's not saved back, since there's also additional overhead to switching between spaces as opposed to just using one.

You can't always just kill a program, I'll often have stuff that I want to keep open or need to save or do something else with while cleaning it up, so I do have to see each window before closing.

The biggest problem is that apple killed the all windows expose for 1 space, or for all the spaces... I want to see all my open windows with their labels!!! Not some of them, without knowing what am I looking right now (descriptive labes are gone)!!! Else mission control is doing the same thing as spaces but that strangely doesn't seem to be confusing to you! Interesting!!!
 
I also like the ability to do an all-app Expose view and see minimized windows as well, which apparently Lion cannot do.

This was my most used expose feature and now it's gone. I'm trying to be sure since upgrading to lion, still cannot believe it.

Also i don't know why but my right shift key is assigned as the same function of the f10 mission control thing, it's so annoying..
 
expose was to me the last great innovative feature apple had added. it made my life so much easier. now it's chucked out the window and have to relearn something. for what purpose do they throw away perfectly good features just to replace them with something new? at least provide the user with the option of keeping it the old way.

the original expose was the best imo with it's varying size of windows. then they made the grid version which only took a little adjustment, but now...well I better not have multiple windows open for different apps or I'll never be able to find what i'm look for with just a flick of wrist like I used to.

The same gesture shows me stacks of windows now. Doesn't do me a much good if i'm in word processor and have multiple finder windows open and I just want to quickly switch to the right one.
 
I think it is pretty obvious that Apple no longer cares about the more advanced features of their OS, or even the more advanced users. They want to make it as minimalistic as possible. Unfortunately, this means taking out features that increased efficiency, such as Exposé and Spaces. And we can thank Steve Jobs for this, the most extreme minimalist of them all.
 
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