I quite like Spaces, I view it almost as an alternative to Expose. Yes, you can use both at once, but in practice if you arranged all your windows side by side in various spaces you wouldn't need Expose any more.
Never have been a huge virtual desktop fan. However, it's a heck of a lot smarter and cheaper than dropping a few hundred to thousands on a second monitor (my apologies if any of you feel targeted ) or third monitor just to increase the work surface.
It's one thing to actually used multiple monitors simultaneously. If you have to look at some large and detailed picture and one monitor doesn't cut it, then more than one monitor might be important. It's another thing if you have two monitors but work on one and then switch to the other for other things. At this point, they are being treated as different spaces...two expensive spaces that could have been a single expensive space that acts as two. This is where virtual desktops become the more rational solution.
That said, virtual desktops are often implemented differently across OSes...not all implementations are decent substitutes to having a second or third monitor. But I happen to think Spaces' implementation is more clever than most I've seen. Things like being able to assign specific apps to a specific space and the automatic switching to the space with the open app windows when you click on this app in the Dock make switching very easy (hands free), natural, and as fast (if not faster) than turning your head towards a second or third monitor.
You can also drag windows from one space to another by dragging them to the edge of the screen. You can switch to a specific space by hitting ctrl-numberkey where the number is the space you want to display or you can navigate the spaces with ctrl-arrowkeys. Or, my current favorite, setting a mouse button (like the scrollball on the Mighty Mouse) to invoke Spaces...then you really get a view of what's going on in each space. As someone put it once, Spaces is like an Exposé for Exposé.
I'm really starting to like how Spaces makes organizing the number of growing app windows much easier. This can be an alternative to people that use tabs as a means to control the number of windows (web browser windows or terminal windows) on screen...what can be done now is assigning Safari or Firefox to a specific space and only use that space for web browsing. You can open dozens of windows and those are the only windows that will be in that space (if you set Spaces up properly or if you're careful to switch space if you launch an app that hasn't been assigned a specific space), and just use Exposé to see all open browser windows.
I'm very pleased with Spaces and this virtual desktop implementation is one I might actually use more often.
I'm fairly certain that Windows 98 or 98se supported multiple monitors.
It depend what you mean by "supporting". I don't say the mac support is perfect - there is a need for some attention on developer's part as well, but it was way more problematic on Windows. May be it is because of tradition - Windows developers (mac developers too, I am afraid) almost never think what will happen when there is more than one monitor. May be there are APIs in Mac OS and not on Win, which, say, automatically place the warning dialog on the screen where the active window currently is, or Windows developers just prefer to place (e.g. center) their warning windows manually, not using an existing API, but that what used to happen in Win: you work on one screen and get warning on the other, or, you want to keep all the pallets on one screen and the data window on the other, but every time the app relaunches or you show/hide the window/pallet they show up on some "default" window and you have to reposition them manually each time. There are problems on the mac sometimes, but they are far less common. Sometimes you are surprised that you start a calibration software on a mac and it opens two panels on each screen, you place the calibrator on one of them, press the start button and the created profile works for that screen without further specific action from the user. On Windows, you had to go through a five step wizard to specify want you want to do and to select the display you want to calibrate.
And I remember, it was XP - some games on Windows XP (well, they were not supposed to be used at the customers site but...) could switch to mirroring and switching back to normal required a three level deep trip into the Properties/Advanced/Options windows, and then finding the proper tab among the dozen perpetually changing their locations tabs. OK, it worked, but there was something wrong there.
Palegolas. Yeah, I think you are right. It was really my older brothers computer, but was the first computer I ever used. I was about four or five at the time we got it (just played games on it). I just got the picture off google images, by typing in Amiga 64, and looking for the computer which looked most like it. I'm certain that was the one. It may well have been called the Amiga 64 here is Australia; we certainly called it that. It was a good little machine. California games, and street fighter saw some serious action on there in its time. Oh well, I'd better stop harping on about it, lest someone chastise me for going off topic.
In regard to spaces, we can commend Apple for not implementing a beryl cube. You see, sometime Apple doesn't go only for eye candy (not that i think they do). I reckon the spaces grid view is great. I had played around with Virtue desktop for a bit, but didn't like the difficulty of moving windows to other spaces. I reckon with spaces, i'll actually make use of virtual desktops.
Then again, maybe i'm just jealous because my ATI graphics card in my macbook pro is not supported for beryl/what ever it's become now (not last time i checked), and thus cannot enjoy it when running ubuntu.
Having heard the "toy computer" chant from the minions who thought DOS 3.0 made them superior for years, I can forgive a bit of good-natured jibing about the past and current shortcomings of the Windows OS.
The restriction of multiple monitors was far more likely a financially-motivated hardware sales decision (don't let iMac cut into PowerMac sales) than it was a system and engineering limitation or oversight. Apple had already proven the OS could support multiple monitors for years when the iMac came out.
That's like saying a PC-maker "cripples" their low-end laptops by not having DVI and support for every imaginable resolution. Extra stuff cost extra money, and the market determines the price-point and feature list. I'm sure Apple ate a lot of excess hardware over the years that had phenomenal expansion capabilities that the everyday user didn't want to pay for. The vast majority of computer users today don't even know you CAN attach multiple monitors to a computer. My current boss tells me my MBP & 23" Cinema display set-up would drive him crazy to look at two screens.
The iMacs obviously had a port for a secondary display that Apple only allowed to mirror the display (I believe there was a hack that re-enabled screen spanning, thus the iMac was clearly capable of it). To me that is the very definition of "crippling" a hardware device. Just like the way my Verizon phone is crippled to not allow Bluetooth syncing (that it is capable of doing it).
Probably minimal, if Virtue Desktops is any indication.
What I'm wondering is what bearing Spaces will have on the RAM. The UI in leopard has been changed enough to have a bit more load on the RAM than before. Spaces seems useful enough but it's helpful mainly when you have many applications/windows open, and I'm wondering if using multiple virtual desktops will add more strain on the memory, especially for a macbook with its integrated graphics (one more reason to look forward to the rumoured revision? yes it'll still be integrated, but anything's better than the 950)
How about a flick of the mouse to the edge of the screen to switch spaces? I loved this feature when I was working on Discreet's Smoke and Flame workstations (I believe that was Unix or Irix or some kinda ix). It was an extremely fast and intuitive way to bounce between workspaces, especially with a stylus.
There's a simpler way to switch spaces. Just drag a window as you normally do. When you're dragging a window and hold your mouse pinned to the edge of the space/desktop, after a brief delay akin to the spring-loaded folder delay, the space will switch (if there is one on the other side of the edge you're pinned to).
Here's an example. Since multiple-monitor desktops are arranged in a horizontal fashion, you will most likely want to arrange your spaces like an elevator. If you are on the middle floor you want to go to the top floor, grab a window and drag the titlebar to where it's touching the Mac menubar and hold. After about 2 seconds, the space slides up to the top floor. The spaces don't wrap though, so to go to the bottom floor directly from the top, you're better off using the other methods. But if you just wanted to go down a floor, drag the window to the bottom of the visible screen as far as you can (the dock won't unhide since you're dragging the window) and after a brief delay the space will go down a level.
Suggested use to fight clutter: keep one space "clean". Your "quiet space". And when you have 2000 windows open and you need to just concentrate on one window, drag it to your quiet space (free of all that clutter) and concentrate on it. Don't leave things in your quiet space. Close them or drag them back somewhere else. A wonderful way to focus that's better than "Hide Others".
Then again, maybe i'm just jealous because my ATI graphics card in my macbook pro is not supported for beryl/what ever it's become now (not last time i checked), and thus cannot enjoy it when running ubuntu.
Well, it's ok to feel jealous. Eye candy is fun sometimes. However, I see that you understand the impracticality of having a rotating cube to display spaces. It's borderline retarded.
With Windows, up until Windows XP you HAD to install the video drivers that came with your second video card that you installed. Without that multiple monitors didn't work.
With Mac OS (don't remember which version, all you had to do was install the second video card, no drivers, and connect it to the second monitor and ... it worked.
The first time I did this I had never touched an Apple computer before. I had only supported DOS, Windows and OS/2 up until then.
The market people called me and said they needed a second monitor setup for one of their Apple computers (I don't remember which model but it was back in the late 80s). I was surprised they called me because they did all their own support before this but they hadn't even opened up a Mac before. They didn't care that I hadn't, they just knew that if there was something different, I was the one to call. I'm glad they did.
I thought there would be a lot more to it. They told me the name and phone number where they bought Mac hardware and software. I called them and was told to just install the video card and connect up the monitor and it would work. They were right. It was amazed. Why couldn't Windows be this #$*&#$*& simple?
Interestingly, Microsoft delivered its first support for multiple physical monitors in 2001 with Windows XP, fifteen years after Apple delivered it on the Mac.
Actually, Microsoft support for multiple monitors support in Windows first appeared in Windows 98, making it about 11 years after Apple. It was a feature that was advertised in the splash screens that appear during the Windows 98 installation. Not as transparent as the Mac's handling of multiple monitors, but it was there. Just because this is a Mac web site and we are Mac users, it does not mean we need to post misinformation about Windows.
Actually, Microsoft support for multiple monitors support in Windows first appeared in Windows 98, making it about 11 years after Apple. It was a feature that was advertised in the splash screens that appear during the Windows 98 installation. Just because this is a Mac web site and we are Mac users, it does not mean we need to post misinformation about Windows.
Just because there was preliminary alpha-quality support (code that a retarded monkey managed to type by slamming its head onto a keyboard and rolling it around a few thousand times) doesn't mean it should have been advertised as a supported feature. MS announces a lot of things that just don't work...doesn't mean that it works. It would be akin to Apple saying ZFS is supported in Mac OS X 10.5. NO! It's not really supported.
This series of articles is very informative but not without prejudice when it comes to Windows:
Quote:
provides mechanisms for switching between applications ... or between a specific applications' windows ... something Windows can't really do because it doesn't define a clear and consistent boundary between an application and an open window; in Windows, sometimes an open window is a document, other times a window is a collection of documents inside an app.
Yes, but it doesn't matter if it is an app or not because in Windows every window represents a task.
Quote:
Windows users are stymied by the constraints of the TaskBar and are trained by the window maximize button to blow up every application to take up the full screen ... The Windows environment discourages an effective use of many open windows sharing the screen and all visible at once.
Really? It's clear that Mac OS and Windows deliver different concepts here but I wouldn't say, that one is really that much better than the other. The fact, that the Taskbar always shows every task (even hidden windows) is really powerful IMO. The difference between both concepts is, that Apple tries to create a very realistic paper-less office experience (like in the early days at PARC) and Microsoft tries to implement an abstract task-oriented concept.
I prefer the abstract way because you doesn't need a hand full of features (app switching, Dock, Exposé, now Spaces) that compete against each other sometimes, but this is just my opinion.
Comments
It's one thing to actually used multiple monitors simultaneously. If you have to look at some large and detailed picture and one monitor doesn't cut it, then more than one monitor might be important. It's another thing if you have two monitors but work on one and then switch to the other for other things. At this point, they are being treated as different spaces...two expensive spaces that could have been a single expensive space that acts as two. This is where virtual desktops become the more rational solution.
That said, virtual desktops are often implemented differently across OSes...not all implementations are decent substitutes to having a second or third monitor. But I happen to think Spaces' implementation is more clever than most I've seen. Things like being able to assign specific apps to a specific space and the automatic switching to the space with the open app windows when you click on this app in the Dock make switching very easy (hands free), natural, and as fast (if not faster) than turning your head towards a second or third monitor.
You can also drag windows from one space to another by dragging them to the edge of the screen. You can switch to a specific space by hitting ctrl-numberkey where the number is the space you want to display or you can navigate the spaces with ctrl-arrowkeys. Or, my current favorite, setting a mouse button (like the scrollball on the Mighty Mouse) to invoke Spaces...then you really get a view of what's going on in each space. As someone put it once, Spaces is like an Exposé for Exposé.
I'm really starting to like how Spaces makes organizing the number of growing app windows much easier. This can be an alternative to people that use tabs as a means to control the number of windows (web browser windows or terminal windows) on screen...what can be done now is assigning Safari or Firefox to a specific space and only use that space for web browsing. You can open dozens of windows and those are the only windows that will be in that space (if you set Spaces up properly or if you're careful to switch space if you launch an app that hasn't been assigned a specific space), and just use Exposé to see all open browser windows.
I'm very pleased with Spaces and this virtual desktop implementation is one I might actually use more often.
Good old computers.
This was my first computer: an Amiga. I always thought it was called an Amiga 64, but apparently that is not the case.
Acorn computers were also mentioned in the last road to leopard, which we used in primary school.
That looks like the Amiga 500?
Was it commonly called by another name in your region?
Good old computers.
This was my first computer: an Amiga. I always thought it was called an Amiga 64, but apparently that is not the case.
Acorn computers were also mentioned in the last road to leopard, which we used in primary school.
Looks like an Amiga 500 to me.
I had one of those, an Amiga 2000 and Amiga 3000.
I'm fairly certain that Windows 98 or 98se supported multiple monitors.
It depend what you mean by "supporting". I don't say the mac support is perfect - there is a need for some attention on developer's part as well, but it was way more problematic on Windows. May be it is because of tradition - Windows developers (mac developers too, I am afraid) almost never think what will happen when there is more than one monitor. May be there are APIs in Mac OS and not on Win, which, say, automatically place the warning dialog on the screen where the active window currently is, or Windows developers just prefer to place (e.g. center) their warning windows manually, not using an existing API, but that what used to happen in Win: you work on one screen and get warning on the other, or, you want to keep all the pallets on one screen and the data window on the other, but every time the app relaunches or you show/hide the window/pallet they show up on some "default" window and you have to reposition them manually each time. There are problems on the mac sometimes, but they are far less common. Sometimes you are surprised that you start a calibration software on a mac and it opens two panels on each screen, you place the calibrator on one of them, press the start button and the created profile works for that screen without further specific action from the user. On Windows, you had to go through a five step wizard to specify want you want to do and to select the display you want to calibrate.
And I remember, it was XP - some games on Windows XP (well, they were not supposed to be used at the customers site but...) could switch to mirroring and switching back to normal required a three level deep trip into the Properties/Advanced/Options windows, and then finding the proper tab among the dozen perpetually changing their locations tabs. OK, it worked, but there was something wrong there.
What kind of resources would it use to have like 4 spaces all running apps at the same time (not the apps themselves, just the 'spaces' part of it)?
Probably minimal, if Virtue Desktops is any indication.
In regard to spaces, we can commend Apple for not implementing a beryl cube. You see, sometime Apple doesn't go only for eye candy (not that i think they do). I reckon the spaces grid view is great. I had played around with Virtue desktop for a bit, but didn't like the difficulty of moving windows to other spaces. I reckon with spaces, i'll actually make use of virtual desktops.
Having heard the "toy computer" chant from the minions who thought DOS 3.0 made them superior for years, I can forgive a bit of good-natured jibing about the past and current shortcomings of the Windows OS.
The restriction of multiple monitors was far more likely a financially-motivated hardware sales decision (don't let iMac cut into PowerMac sales) than it was a system and engineering limitation or oversight. Apple had already proven the OS could support multiple monitors for years when the iMac came out.
That's like saying a PC-maker "cripples" their low-end laptops by not having DVI and support for every imaginable resolution. Extra stuff cost extra money, and the market determines the price-point and feature list. I'm sure Apple ate a lot of excess hardware over the years that had phenomenal expansion capabilities that the everyday user didn't want to pay for. The vast majority of computer users today don't even know you CAN attach multiple monitors to a computer. My current boss tells me my MBP & 23" Cinema display set-up would drive him crazy to look at two screens.
The iMacs obviously had a port for a secondary display that Apple only allowed to mirror the display (I believe there was a hack that re-enabled screen spanning, thus the iMac was clearly capable of it). To me that is the very definition of "crippling" a hardware device. Just like the way my Verizon phone is crippled to not allow Bluetooth syncing (that it is capable of doing it).
I flip from job to job very easily.
Is this an accepted work around or what? Will spaces be as easy?
Probably minimal, if Virtue Desktops is any indication.
What I'm wondering is what bearing Spaces will have on the RAM. The UI in leopard has been changed enough to have a bit more load on the RAM than before. Spaces seems useful enough but it's helpful mainly when you have many applications/windows open, and I'm wondering if using multiple virtual desktops will add more strain on the memory, especially for a macbook with its integrated graphics (one more reason to look forward to the rumoured revision? yes it'll still be integrated, but anything's better than the 950)
Here's an example. Since multiple-monitor desktops are arranged in a horizontal fashion, you will most likely want to arrange your spaces like an elevator. If you are on the middle floor you want to go to the top floor, grab a window and drag the titlebar to where it's touching the Mac menubar and hold. After about 2 seconds, the space slides up to the top floor. The spaces don't wrap though, so to go to the bottom floor directly from the top, you're better off using the other methods. But if you just wanted to go down a floor, drag the window to the bottom of the visible screen as far as you can (the dock won't unhide since you're dragging the window) and after a brief delay the space will go down a level.
Suggested use to fight clutter: keep one space "clean". Your "quiet space". And when you have 2000 windows open and you need to just concentrate on one window, drag it to your quiet space (free of all that clutter) and concentrate on it. Don't leave things in your quiet space. Close them or drag them back somewhere else. A wonderful way to focus that's better than "Hide Others".
Then again, maybe i'm just jealous because my ATI graphics card in my macbook pro is not supported for beryl/what ever it's become now (not last time i checked), and thus cannot enjoy it when running ubuntu.
Well, it's ok to feel jealous. Eye candy is fun sometimes. However, I see that you understand the impracticality of having a rotating cube to display spaces. It's borderline retarded.
With Mac OS (don't remember which version, all you had to do was install the second video card, no drivers, and connect it to the second monitor and ... it worked.
The first time I did this I had never touched an Apple computer before. I had only supported DOS, Windows and OS/2 up until then.
The market people called me and said they needed a second monitor setup for one of their Apple computers (I don't remember which model but it was back in the late 80s). I was surprised they called me because they did all their own support before this but they hadn't even opened up a Mac before. They didn't care that I hadn't, they just knew that if there was something different, I was the one to call. I'm glad they did.
I thought there would be a lot more to it. They told me the name and phone number where they bought Mac hardware and software. I called them and was told to just install the video card and connect up the monitor and it would work. They were right. It was amazed. Why couldn't Windows be this #$*&#$*& simple?
Interestingly, Microsoft delivered its first support for multiple physical monitors in 2001 with Windows XP, fifteen years after Apple delivered it on the Mac.
Actually, Microsoft support for multiple monitors support in Windows first appeared in Windows 98, making it about 11 years after Apple. It was a feature that was advertised in the splash screens that appear during the Windows 98 installation. Not as transparent as the Mac's handling of multiple monitors, but it was there. Just because this is a Mac web site and we are Mac users, it does not mean we need to post misinformation about Windows.
Actually, Microsoft support for multiple monitors support in Windows first appeared in Windows 98, making it about 11 years after Apple. It was a feature that was advertised in the splash screens that appear during the Windows 98 installation. Just because this is a Mac web site and we are Mac users, it does not mean we need to post misinformation about Windows.
Just because there was preliminary alpha-quality support (code that a retarded monkey managed to type by slamming its head onto a keyboard and rolling it around a few thousand times) doesn't mean it should have been advertised as a supported feature. MS announces a lot of things that just don't work...doesn't mean that it works. It would be akin to Apple saying ZFS is supported in Mac OS X 10.5. NO! It's not really supported.
provides mechanisms for switching between applications ... or between a specific applications' windows ... something Windows can't really do because it doesn't define a clear and consistent boundary between an application and an open window; in Windows, sometimes an open window is a document, other times a window is a collection of documents inside an app.
Yes, but it doesn't matter if it is an app or not because in Windows every window represents a task.
Windows users are stymied by the constraints of the TaskBar and are trained by the window maximize button to blow up every application to take up the full screen ... The Windows environment discourages an effective use of many open windows sharing the screen and all visible at once.
Really? It's clear that Mac OS and Windows deliver different concepts here but I wouldn't say, that one is really that much better than the other. The fact, that the Taskbar always shows every task (even hidden windows) is really powerful IMO. The difference between both concepts is, that Apple tries to create a very realistic paper-less office experience (like in the early days at PARC) and Microsoft tries to implement an abstract task-oriented concept.
I prefer the abstract way because you doesn't need a hand full of features (app switching, Dock, Exposé, now Spaces) that compete against each other sometimes, but this is just my opinion.