Improvements to Stage Manager?

[donawalt]

I don't have Sonoma, so I was wondering if anyone here has seen any enhancements/improvements in Stage Manager so far in the beta? I know it's not that popular, but I like it and would enjoy seeing some enhancements. Thanks!

 

[Simmias]

I have this same question. I can't find anything reported on this one way or the other. The Stage Manager improvements in iPad OS 17 have been widely discussed, but nothing about the Mac.

I like Stage Manager and have tried to make it my default way to manage windows on the Mac, but there are a few pain points including:

• When launching an app like calculator, there is no way to open the app in your current stage. The best you can do is open on a new stage, and then Shift+click on the previous stage to merge.
• Stage Manager does not play nice with Zoom. When on Zoom calls for work (most of my day), you cannot change stages without losing your Zoom window. And if you minimize a shared window, it looks distorted and pixelated. I wish there were a way to make Zoom a "floating window" that stays on top even when switching changes.

Can anyone confirm and deny any changes to Stage Manager? I guess I will find out for myself when Sonoma is released on Tuesday. I'll be disappointed if Apple didn't make any year-over-year enhancements - it's so close to solving my long-standing window management headaches of MacOS.

 

[will_henderson]

This review discusses the changes at length

macOS Sonoma: The MacStories Review

Disappointments Shortcuts There’s not a lot to say about Shortcuts this year. There wasn’t much to say last year either, and that’s the biggest Shortcuts news and disappointment of Sonoma. We were told that Shortcuts was the future of Mac automation, but it hasn’t turned out that way. Yes...

www.macstories.net

 

[MacMan988]

It doesn’t looks like it has gained a lot of improvements and it still is ******. Not sure if an average Mac user is aware, but the world has moved forward quite a lot in the desktop management aspect. Some of the tiling window managers that are available on Linux runs buttery smooth even on older hardware.

 

[Steve Ballmer]

Stage Manager seems like it is intended for use when you don't have any virtual desktops set up, you just use one. As you can then manage your windows into small groups akin to virtual desktops. Combining the two, though, was odd. I tried it for all of Ventura's life cycle and never really got used to it. Most of the time the window I would want was never on screen. I'd merge it into the current group, but then that largely defeated the point. So for Sonoma, I've turned it off. I might re-examine it in the future if it gets some improvements.