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Hey

I seem to be doing a lot of random list articles all of a sudden. It must be a phase I am going through. Anyway I like lists since I can refer to them myself when I can’t remember how to do something. This list today is going to lots of hints, tips and tricks for Spaces. Spaces is the virtual desktop software which can allow you to have more than one desktop at a time. Very handy if your computers gets cluttered up. This list will range from the basic tip to the more advance tricks. I hope it comes in handy for you.

Starting Spaces

Probably a good tip to start on is actually starting spaces. If your Mac is fresh out of the box then you may not know how to start Spaces (if it isn’t enabled by default). To start Spaces go to System Preferences > Expose & Spaces > Spaces > Enable Spaces. You can also set the amount of spaces you want and the menu bar icon.

Activating Spaces

Spaces is activated by pressing the F8 key by default. If you press Shift + F8, the effect will happen in slow motion.

Move Between Spaces

You can move between spaces using the Control + Arrow Key. A cool graphic will display showing you which Space you have left and which Space you are entering. You can switch directly to a Space by pressing Control + # Key. For example Control + 6, to move to Space 6.

You can also use the scroll feature of a mouse or track pad to move between Spaces. If you activate Spaces and then use the scroll function you can highlight different Spaces.

Drag Applications To Other Spaces

To drag an application to another Space is really simple. Bring the application you want to move to the front, activate Spaces then drag and drop to the application to the Space you want to move it to.

If you want to move all windows of an application from one space to another activate Spaces, press the command key and drag the applications to the space you want to move them to.

If you want to collate all of the windows from all of your applications into one Space, activate Spaces and press the “c” key. All of the applications will move into Space one.

Using Exposé and Spaces

Using Exposé and Spaces is really simple. Simply press F8 and then F9 to activate Exposé. You can then do all of the previous commands listed in the example above.

Re-arrange Spaces

This is a quick trick I found while messing around. If you want to re-arrange a Space because you don’t like how they are arrange, activate Spaces then click on the blue area that defines a Space. Then drag and drop your Space into its new location. You can use this tool to rearrange any Space. Note that if you move Space one from the first position, if you press C it will move all of your applications into the new first Space.

Disable Switching of Spaces on Command + Tab

If you have a Finder window in Space one, and Firefox in Space two which you alt + tab between the two it will change the Space. If you want to turn this off, simply uncheck the check box in the Spaces Preference Pane. Or you can use this funky Terminal command.

defaults write com.apple.Dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool NO
killall Dock

Simply change NO to YES to reverse this command or use the checkbox in the Preference Pane.

Change The Delay When Dragging Spaces

I have mentioned before you can drag and drop applications from one window to another. To change the delay type the following command. I don’t really see the different, but you might. The default is 0.75

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-edge-delay -float 0.5
killall Dock

Disable The Wrap Around On Spaces

If you press Control + Arrow Key the spaces indicator will move all the way to the left, right top or bottom Space, if you keep pressing that key it will wrap around to the next Space. If you use this command you can stop this command so it will stop at the end of the row or column.

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-wrap-arrows -boolean NO
killall Dock

Conclusion

If you have any more Spaces tips please leave a comment below. I think I have added all that I know so there shouldn’t be to many.

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