Mission Control

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Show a Full Size Window Preview in Mission Control for OS X

Dec 1, 2011 - 5 Comments
Full Size Window Preview in Mission Control

Mission Control in Mac OS X groups together thumbnail previews of windows from the same app. By hovering the mouse cursor over a cluster of these thumbnails and scrolling up on a multitouch trackpad or Magic Mouse (or scrolling up the mouse wheel with other mice), you can cause the cluster to expand, showing more … Read More

Show All Windows for an App in Mac OS X with Mission Controls Exposé

Nov 24, 2011 - 20 Comments
Show All App Windows with Expose in OS X Lion

Exposé was replaced with Mission Control in OS X Lion by name, but that doesn’t mean some of the most useful functions of Expose are gone, and in fact what you could see in Expose is still around in the newest versions of Mac OS X, including Mountain Lion 10.8 and newer. One very popular … Read More

How to Restart Mission Control in Mac OS X

Nov 23, 2011 - 31 Comments
Restart Mission Control in OS X

If you make any customizations to Mission Control, or if you encounter obvious problems with how Desktops and apps are handled and assigned, you can restart Mission Control without having to reboot the entire Mac.

Stop Spaces from Rearranging Themselves in Mac OS X

Nov 12, 2011 - 32 Comments
Stop Spaces from Rearranging Themselves in OS X

New versions of Mac OS X have an interesting and sometimes unusual change to Mission Control’s behavior, where desktops/spaces will automatically rearrange themselves based on how recently they’ve been used or accessed. If you’ve set your spaces (virtual desktops) to be in a specific order, this is fairly annoying, but it’s also easy to stop … Read More

Quickly Create a New Desktop for an App from Mission Control in Mac OS X

Nov 8, 2011 - 1 Comment
Create a new Desktop from an App via Mission Control

Using Mission Control on the Mac, you can quickly create a new Desktop Space just by grabbing an app from the Mission Control window, and then dragging the window into the corner, then letting it go on the “+” plus icon. This will instantly generate a new desktop space, or a virtual desktop, with that … Read More

Move Desktop Spaces in Mission Control for Mac OS X with a Drag & Drop

Nov 1, 2011 - 6 Comments
Rearrange spaces in Mission Control

Users who rely on Spaces within Mission Control to manage multiple virtual desktops in Mac OS X will be happy to know that these desktops (Spaces, as Apple calls them in Mac OS) are completely adjustable. This means you can rearrange or move your desktop spaces as necessary, and as your needs change, and it’s … Read More

Close Desktop Spaces in Mission Control for Mac OS X Quickly

Oct 27, 2011 - 15 Comments
Close Desktop Spaces in Mission Control

Spaces are the the Virtual Desktop feature in OS X, and it’s part of the Mission Control window management system on the Mac. If you’ve opened a few desktop spaces that you no longer need access to, you can close them. Perhaps the fastest way and most efficient means of closing a desktop space in … Read More

Use Different Desktop Background Pictures for Spaces in Mac OS X

Oct 26, 2011 - 5 Comments
Set Different Wallpapers for Desktop Spaces in OS X Lion

The Mission Control “Spaces” feature in OS X is essentially a virtual desktop environment. A nice way to differentiate each individual desktop Space is to go about assigning different wallpapers to different desktop spaces. Setting unique wallpaper backgrounds per desktop is easy in Mac OS X now, here’s the quickest way to do this:

Show Recent Items Per App with a Two-Fingered Double Tap in Mac OS X

Oct 25, 2011 - 8 Comments
Show Recent Items per application in OS X Lion

Want to see recent items on a per app basis? The Mac makes this easy with a variety of ways, but perhaps one of the most convenient involves a simple tap gesture. This is particularly fast and simple, and here’s how it works.

Enable Motion Blur in Mission Control for Mac OS X Lion

Oct 17, 2011 - 27 Comments
Motion Blur in Mission Control on Mac OS X Lion

Mission Control in Mac OS X Lion has a hidden motion blur effect that can be enabled quite easily:

Drag Files & Folders Between Desktops & Full Screen Apps in Mac OS X 10.7.2

Oct 13, 2011 - 5 Comments
Drag files and folders between Desktops in Mac OS X Lion

One of the subtle changes in the Mac OS X 10.7.2 update is the ability to drag files and folders between Desktops and Full Screen apps in Mission Control. All you need to do is grab a file or folder and start pulling the item off the screen in the direction of the Desktop or … Read More

Switch Between Desktop Spaces Faster in Mac OS X with Control Keys

Sep 6, 2011 - 30 Comments
Switch between Desktops faster in Mac OS X Lion

Switching between active Desktops/Spaces in OS X with the three fingered sideways swipe is very quick, but an even faster method is by using the Control keys. The first option is to use the Control + Arrow keys, which is enabled by default. As you might expect, Control + Left Arrow switches to the desktop … Read More

Set Dashboard to Transparently Hover Over the Desktop in Mac OS X

Aug 16, 2011 - 14 Comments
Return Mac OS X Lion Dashboard to hover transparently over the desktop

Don’t use Dashboard often or maybe you don’t like Dashboard much in Mac OS X? It’s a great feature but it’s often underutilized, and if changing Dashboards background wallpaper wasn’t sufficient enough for you to start using it again, you can always return Dashboard behavior to the standard transparent hovering state that existed prior to … Read More

Change the Mission Control Background Wallpaper Image in Mac OS X Lion

Aug 12, 2011 - 25 Comments
Change Mission Controls background wallpaper image

It’s time to customize the appearance of Mac OS X 10.7 again. We recently showed you how to change Dashboards wallpaper image from that Lego-like pattern to anything else, and then we showed you how to change Launchpads folder background pattern to your choice. Next up is Mission Control’s background image, say goodbye to Linen … Read More

Assign Apps to Desktops in Mission Control

Aug 11, 2011 - 11 Comments
Assign Apps to Spaces in Mission Control

If you use multiple Desktops (aka Spaces aka Virtual Desktops) in OS X Lion’s Mission Control, you can set apps to specific Desktops, all Desktops, or no specific Desktop at all. Right-click on the apps icon in the Dock Navigate to Options, and then from the “Assign To” sub-menu select one of the three choices: … Read More

Linen Wallpaper from Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Mission Control

Jun 10, 2011 - 12 Comments
Mac OS X Lion Linen Wallpaper from Mission Control

Another day, another nice wallpaper from Mac OS X Lion. This one comes from the background of the Mission Control app in the latest Lion Developer Preview 4, it’s not quite as flashy as the galaxy wallpaper but it’s a nice subtle grey shaded linen pattern and it’s a lot more subdued than some of … Read More

Change the Delay When Dragging Windows Within Spaces on Mac

Feb 10, 2010 - 8 Comments

Spaces is a really nice feature of Mac OS X that lets you place different windows and applications within their own workspace. Dragging a window to a new Space is just a matter of holding onto the window and pulling it towards the end of the screen. You may have noticed that there’s a delay … Read More

Sweep All Windows Into Another Spaces Screen on Mac

Nov 1, 2009 - 2 Comments

Need to migrate all of a Spaces set of windows to another Spaces screen in Mac OS X? Using a simple keystroke you can do just that. To sweep all of your open apps and windows into a group via Spaces, here’s what you need to do and a quick overview of how this great … Read More

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