Even more screen space (what?)
If one screen is not enough for you, then just go out and buy another monitor! What!?
Don’t worry, just kidding…
With Mac OS X Leopard, Apple introduces a feature called “Spaces”. The idea is to give you multiple, (virtual) desktops on only one screen (cool, saves you money).
Setup
To access Spaces, just click on its icon in the Dock.
Mac OS X asks you if you want to set up Spaces. Oh yeah, definitely! So, you’re taken to the Spaces Preferences.
First of all, enable Spaces.
You see, there is a number of things, you can set up. From an icon in the menu bar (to indicate the space you are currently in) to keyboard shortcuts to change the current space (yeah, keyboard shortcuts!)
You can assign certain applications to certain spaces. This is handy, if you, for example, want to make a space for all your internet applications such as Safari (browser), Mail and Adium (Instant Messaging). So no matter which space you currently are in, the application always starts in the space you assign it to.
By setting it to “Every Space” the application is present in every space.
Keyboard shortcuts
You can get an overview of all Spaces by hitting the F8-key, showing you a birds-eye view of all your spaces.
Finally, you can set keyboard shortcuts, to directly switch or access a certain space. The “^” symbol is the symbol used for the “ctrl” key on your Mac keyboard. In the default setup, hold down the “ctrl” key while you press one of the numbers from 1-4 to access a space directly.
By holding down “ctrl” and pressing the arrow keys you can switch around the spaces as well.
One more thing …
When you are in birds-eye view (i.e. you pressed F8) you can re-arrange your windows, by dragging them around with the mouse.
Hitting the C-key collects all visible windows (not those you have hidden, as shown yesterday) in Space 1, so you can sort them out, easily.
As with everything else: Just go along, try it out and leave a comment on how you like it.
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Tags: expose, Spaces, System Prefs
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