Tech IT Easy

Dear App-maker and Apple,

I appreciate Spaces a lot as a feature on Leopard. I think it makes me more productive, in the sense that I am now completely focussed on my blog editor in space 2, and all the other distracting apps are stowed away in the other spaces. But Spaces isn’t perfect, which is part Apple’s fault and part Apps’ fault.

Exhibit 1: the preference pane
The Spaces preferences are a mess, one long list of messes. When adding an app to a certain space, it doesn’t go to that app in the list, instead it adds it, I have to search for it, and find it has been set to the latest space I used or assigned an app to (which is a actually good, I’m not a whiner).

Why is all of this centralised? If I want to see what space an app is assigned to, why not have me do that in the app-preferences? To me it makes so much more sense to install an app, go to its preferences or a menu-item, and just set the space from there. Instead of having to dig through the bloated preference pane.

Exhibit 2: the auto-switching
OK, I actually don’t have a problem with selecting an app and having it open in its appropriate space. But what I do have a problem is apps ripping me away from the space I’m in, sometimes multiple times, because… I don’t know, they call for it? This happens with Pages, with Marsedit, with Safari, and I don’t know what. Somehow, when it loads up stuff, like webpages or those pesky floating info-windows, it calls Spaces to attention and poof, I am ripped away from what I was currently doing.

That Sir, is not my definition of a productivity enhancer.

I have now set Spaces to not auto-switch, but what I would really like is for a. this not to happen and for b. to be able to set, per app, which one auto-swicthes and which doesn’t—another case for having Spaces be included in app-preferences.

Exhibit 3: ghost dialogue boxes
Regardless of what app I use, this happens constantly. Dialogue-boxes don’t always open in the same space as the app is in. Instead, a dialogue box opens, I know it does, but I can’t find it. And when I switch between Spaces, I sometimes see it floating by, like a ghost again. Hiding the app in front of it doesn’t work, the dialogue box disappears too. I have to minimise the app(S) in front of it, to find that stupid box. Not effective!

I want dialogue boxes per app to stick to the space they are set to, and preferably stay on top (if anyone knows a hack for the latter, post a comment).

In conclusion…
I assume that most of this is a design error on the part of Apple, but I’d really like for this to be improved. Exhibit 1 is clearly a user-interface issue, which could be drastically improved by allowing preferences to be set per app. Exhibit 2 and 3 are bugs, no more no less, and I hope that Apple gets it together and fixes it.