Ask HN: Do you use the virtual desktops feature in OS X Mountain Lion? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you use the virtual desktops feature in OS X Mountain Lion?

3 pointsalexbrand0910 comments

Do you have more than one desktop in OS X Mountain Lion? If so, what is your setup?

Yes absolutely. I have an 11' Air and I really like being able to transition between known desktop layouts with just a three finger swipe.

Below is a picture and description of how I keep my desktops organized.

  +---+ +---+ +---+ +---+ +---+ +---+
  | F | | T | |EF | |Ch | | G | |Pdf|
  +---+ +---+ +---+ +---+ +---+ +---+

F = All my "fun" windows. Chrome with facebook, hn, reddit, etc; iTunes; Other programs that I open and close occasionally like chat, torrent software, etc.

T = full screen terminal. I use the basic terminal included with OSX. I keep a bunch of tabs open on it. This window/desktop is the home base for my development work that touches any of my servers.

EF = Emacs and Finder. I spend a lot of time on this desktop since I use a GUI Emacs for all my local development and org-mode for all my notes/lists, etc. I also like having finder here to look for/organize files on the filesystem. This desktop is conveniently located between my terminal and webbrowser.

Ch = Google Chrome, open with documentation, tutorials, and other resources for development. This gets its own desktop since I will often keep multiple windows open with many tabs each. Each chrome window will relate to a different project that I'm working on.

G = The Gimp (also occasionally Inkscape or other image editing software)

Pdf = full screen PDFs that I'm reading like books. I could have many of these open, and I leave them open all the time so I don't loose my place.

How do you keep your desktops separate? It seems that any change made in one is automatically made in the others. I have found that you can limit an application to one desktop, but if that is true, then how do you use two separate Chrome tabs in two different desktops?

I'm not totally sure what you're asking. I've never seen a change made to one desktop made automatically to the others. The problem I do run in to is that when I open a program for the first time it seems to appear in one of my desktops at random. When that happens I just three finger swipe up and drag the window to the desktop it belongs in. I never limit a program to one desktop, I just move its window there if it gets out of place.

These things really aren't too much of an issue for me though, mostly because I am loath to ever close a window or restart a program, which leads to everything happily sitting where I placed it.

I have a 15' Mac book pro and this is almost exactly how I have it most of the time. Three finger swipes to change window is more effective than alt-tabbing for me.

I use it a lot in my 13" Air, I switched from PC+Ubuntu desktop to MacOS and having multiple desktops makes perfect sense to me since day one. But I've got a weird issue with multiple monitors and extended desktop, when I switch from a virtual desktop to another one, monitor shows a gray background and I can't place windows on it making multiple monitors plus virtual desktops totally useless.

I use it once in a while. My problem is that I want some apps to show up on the current desktop, while others should be tied to a specific one. Because that isn't possible (as far as I know), something like an instant messenger will constantly throw me off by switching my desktop for no good reason.

If you two-finger click the application, it will give you the option to assign it to a specific desktop.

Oh that's cool, I never knew there was an "All Desktops" option. Would have saved me a bunch of grief a few days ago..

No. Multiple virtual desktops confuse me.

Agreed. So much better with a second monitor when I need it. Otherwise alt-tab is fine.

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