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A "Solution" For Vanishing Windows In Spaces

As I reported in a earlier story, Spaces will occasionally lose track of all of the windows in a given space and that when it happens they just all just vanish into... well, you know.

Now, according to a new support document from Apple, the reason may be related to syncing System Preferences using .Mac. The vanishing window behavior can occur if one computer has Spaces enabled but another computer does not, or if both use Spaces but they have different row and column settings.

The recommended solution, unfortunately, falls into the "don't do that category".

To quote, "use the same Spaces settings on all computers that are syncing Preferences, or do not sync Preferences if you do not want to use Spaces on all of your computers."

Okay, but here's hoping that 10.5.2 brings a solution to this and most of our other problems with Leopard.

Navigate Spaces With Warp

Kent Sutherland's Warp gives you new ways to navigate Spaces using your mouse.

Know the trick where you can drag a window across Spaces by moving it to an edge? Well, Warp let's you do the same thing, only without the window in tow.

More Confessions Of A Space-oholic...

As I've no doubt mentioned before, I'm a Space-oholic. In fact, I've just returned from my weekly meeting, and I thought I've give you an update on how things stand.

The support group isn't helping.

OS X Leopard has over 300 new features, and yet the one I use daily, hourly, to tell the truth nearly every minute I'm on my machine, is Spaces.

I use the newer faster Spotlight, but only perhaps once or twice an hour. Time Machine continually runs in the background, silently doing its job, but I think I've recovered perhaps two files since Leopard's installation.

But Spaces is always there, ready and waiting the instant my attention shifts to another task.

Quick Tip: Multiple Safari Windows In Spaces

Julian of Visual Lizard posted a tip on how to easily get a new Safari window in your current space using the Dashboard... which leads me to believe that some people have overlooked the obvious solution:

Just right-click the Safari icon in the Dock and select New Window from the popup menu. (You can also activate the menu using a control-click or a click-and-hold.) Boom. One new Safari window, right where you need it.

The same menu also lists all of Safari's active and minimized windows by name. This can be useful when you need to return to a specific site, or if you've forgotten the space where the window was located.

More Spaces tips and discussions can be found in our Spaces article index.

[via Visual Lizard]

Windows Vanish Into Space(s)

As I may have mentioned in Confessions of a Space-oholic, I love Spaces. But as with any love, sometimes the object of your affections can be a bit... capricious.

Several users have reported that Spaces can lose track of all of the windows in a given space and that when it does so they just vanish. Sometimes you can get them back by hiding and then showing the application using the dock, but when it happened to me earlier today I had to quit and restart all of the affected applications in order to return things to normal.

No Spaces-related changes were mentioned in the 10.5.1 update released yesterday, so I guess that we're just going to have to be patient with our lovely lady's occassional quirks and deal with them as they occur. At least until Apple figures out what's going on and issues a fix.

If only real life were so simple...

Quick Tip: Cycle Through Spaces With The Dock

This one is quick and easy. If you have windows from the same application open in multiple Spaces, you can cycle through each of those spaces just by clicking that application's icon in the Dock.

So let's say you have Safari windows open in spaces 2 and 5, and you're in space 1. Click on the Safari icon in the Dock, and the frontmost Safari window in space 2 appears. Just as you'd expect.

But click again, and now you're looking at Safari's frontmost window in space 5. Do it again, and you're cycled back to space 2. Repeat. Rinse.

And as always, enjoy.

Confessions Of A Space-oholic...

It's my turn. I rise to my feet and move to the podium. Staring out at a gathering of mostly sympathetic faces, I clear my throat and say, "Hello, my name is Michael, and I'm addicted to Spaces."

As one, the members of the group reply, "Hello, Michael."

And so it begins.

Quick Tip: Assigning The Finder To A Specific Space

I've found that it's become helpful to assign Leopard's new Finder to a specific Space so that new Finder windows always appear together with their brethren.

However, while many people know how to assign an application to a given space using the Expose/Spaces pane in System Preferences, doing the same thing to the Finder is a bit of mystery, since it's nowhere to be found in the Applications folder.