Finally figured out how to customize Spaces “Switch directly to a space”shortcuts
I started using Linux in 1997, and fell in love with virtual desktops right away. A real productivity-booster. When I turned to Mac OS X in 2006 after a hard breakup with Linux on my laptop one of the first things I installed was VirtueDesktops. It worked very well, and I used it all the time.
Then came Leopard bringing not gifts, but Spaces. Spaces is one of the worse implementations of virtual desktops I have seen.
- Impossible to turn off the animations when switching desktop. Theese animations tend to get slower during the day also.
- Impossible to have more than 4 columns of desktops
- When you Cmd-Tab around in your applications you also switch desktop. With the whole animation and all this is horrible. Just ask Nick Santilli over at theAppleBlog.
- You may not set up your own keyboard shortcuts for direct access to each desktop. You must live with <Modifier>+<Number>
The first three annoyances are something I cannot remedy that easily. But number four is something you may actually do something about! Or at least, there is a workaround.
Enter Butler.
Butler is a tool to make repetitive tasks easier. Like launching applications. It’s much like QuickSilver in many ways. The Butler website has some challenges as I write this, so I enclose the install DMG here.
Download Butler: butler.dmg.zip
Now, for the setup. I want to have a grid of 4×2 desktops. I want the upper row to be accessible with Cmd-Esc to Cmd-F3, and the lower row with Cmd-1 to Cmd-4.
So, what to do?
* Start Butler.
* Modify your spaces settings. Set the “Switch directly to a space” key to be Option, as you want Cmd as your future hot
key, and Control is convenient for having as the real spaces shortcut. See illustration below.
* Configure/Customize Butler. Add a new Keystroke Smart Item.
* Then add a name to it, like “Workspace 1″. Also give the keystroke that you want Butler to generate.
* Now select the “Triggers” tab, and give the hotkey wanted for switching to that workspace. I prefer my first workspace to be on Cmd-Escape:
* Repeat the process for all your desktops/workspaces, then go back to System Preferences and make the hot key for “Switch directly to a space” to be Control (^).
Voilá. You now have your own hotkeys for navigating directly to a desktop in spaces.
The fact that you cannot remove the animation when switching spaces is the worst thing ever. There HAS to come a fix for this asap. I’m really surprised there hasn’t been a hack/fix for this already on the net.
The most annoying thing about spaces is opening up a new browser window moves you to a different space sometimes. Really annoying. This never happens in Linux.
I agree with every other user – the sliding animation is so slow and dizzying I absolutely cannot use spaces to rapidly switch between programs. It’s totally ineffective.