Customise Leopard Spaces
Mac Tip #318/05-Dec-2007

After the last few Tips you may have Spaces almost completely under control, but there are a few final steps to taking total charge.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Visit System Preferences > Exposé and Spaces > Spaces and look at the Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts section.

Choose keyboard options from the pop-ups

I’ve left my settings at the defaults so, for example, Control right arrow (or left arrow) cycles through each Space in turn moving to the right (or left). Control 1 takes me straight to Space number 1. [My screenshot shows that I was holding down Shift and Command while making my selection (as required by Snapz Pro X, my screenshot software).]

Rows and Columns

Customise how many Spaces you use, and how they are arranged, by clicking the + and - buttons beside Rows and Columns. A friend expressed a wish for 3 Spaces. To make 3 in a row click the + beside Columns, and the – beside Rows.

If you try to remove a Column or Row to which you’ve previously assigned applications an alert appears warning you that assignments will have to be moved.

Collect Spaces

After pressing F8 (or whichever key you’ve assigned) to see an overview of all Spaces, press the C key to collect all windows into one Space. Press C again to put them back.

Note: I found I couldn’t put the windows back into their Spaces with the C key after I’d created a new column between times.

Set an active screen corner

Set an active screen corner.

Again, note that you can hold down Shift and other keys while making your choice, to require those keys. [My screenshot shows that I was holding down Shift and Command while making my selection (as required by Snapz Pro X, my screenshot software).]

Thanks

With thanks to Andy Piper who pointed out the C key and hot corner in a very useful comment on the first Tip in this series.