Eric Bergen

Apple has managed to knock one more item off the list of things I think are missing from Mac OS X. Leopard is going to support virtual desktops with an app they call Spaces. I know that Spaces has already been done with an app called VirtueDesktop. While VirtueDesktop does solve the problem it’s clunky and not very intuitive to manage. Spaces borrows a few tricks from it’s older brother Exposé using Mac OS X awesome graphics engine to give an overview of all desktops and drag windows between them. I hope it works as well as they say it does on their site.

I would like to be able to specify window specific settings to be applied to windows that are created. Things like when the javascript viewer in firefox opens it will be a specific size, always on top, and open at a specific position. These things are all possible in KDE but not Mac OS X. They aren’t so important on the laptop as they are on a desktop. On Mac laptops I have found it works well enough to simply flick a finger across the trackpad to an Exposé hot corner to show all windows instead of having several desktops. When that laptop is docked another profile should load that sets up shortcuts for switching to virtual desktops and automatically moves all those windows to the correct desktop.

• The list is down to
• Window specific settings for on top, size, and location.
• Easy profiles for being docked vs mobile.
• Shortcut keys for most window operations like maximize, close, minimize, and open.
• Ability to map those shortcut keys to anything not just a few choices.

Mac OS X is the current leader for my primary OS choice for portable and docked environment. Once they fix the items above (or you submit comments telling me how to easily accomplish those things) I will be able to run my entire computer life from a single box. Something I have wanted to do for a long time. The end to this quest is getting closer but it’s not over yet..

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 20th, 2006 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Geek, QFTPWE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.