Stage Manager vs Mission Control

[rjalex]

Recentrly switched to Ventura 13.1 coming from Mavericks. Been on it for only a week. Trying all the new OS features including Stage Manager but so far in my real life situations I am not finding it better than Mission Control for bringing up my window apps and selecting the one I need to work with.

The three fingers swipe on the touchpad is pretty much instinctive, a no brainer, while drifting to the left of my 4K native resolution screen is more distracting and also with Mission Control I get the windows back in place and size as I had set them up while SM kind of places them where I often have to wiggle them around to my liking.

What's your opinion on this?

 

[jonnysods]

I stuck with expose/mission control. I tried SM for maybe 15 minutes and couldn't see how it would fit into my workflow. Plus I use 5 monitors at my office so MC works great.

 

[petvas]

Stage Manager is definitely not for power users on the Mac. Mission Control is much more powerful. Maybe if Stage Manager gets some updates, it will become a valid alternative, but as of now I don't see a point in using it on the Mac.
I believe that Apple brought the Stage Manager for users that want to concentrate on a single task.

 

[martens]

Stage Manager is definitely not for power users on the Mac. Mission Control is much more powerful. Maybe if Stage Manager gets some updates, it will become a valid alternative, but as of now I don't see a point in using it on the Mac.
I believe that Apple brought the Stage Manager for users that want to concentrate on a single task.

I might have agreed when I first looked at it, but after ignoring it for a couple of months, I've come around to really liking it recently. In fact I cannot imagine a scenario where I'd want to turn it off. I think I qualify as a power user by most measures.

The key feature, of course, is that it helps organize app windows that aren't running full screen or in a Split View, with the ability to create window groups.

It improves on Split View, as it is not restricted to just 2 windows, it is much easier to create and modify Stage Manager window groups than set up or modify a Split View, and you have a lot more control over placement and sizing. And Split View is there for situations where it's preferred (I like to run two Safari windows in one).

And I find some things that I used to run full screen, just to lift them out of the chaos of randomly placed overlapping windows, work just as well as their own window group. The chaos is all gone, and with both the window group thumbnails and desktop items hidden (a click on desktop reveals them), it is very much to my liking.

Mission Control works exactly the same when Stage Manager is enabled. It complements Stage Manager very well.

I would like to be able to enable keyboard shortcuts to cycle through the window groups, as one can on iPadOS.

I'm also a convert to it on my iPad Pro 12.9, though the use cases are a little different.

 

[jedcoza]

I might have agreed when I first looked at it, but after ignoring it for a couple of months, I've come around to really liking it recently. In fact I cannot imagine a scenario where I'd want to turn it off. I think I qualify as a power user by most measures.

The key feature, of course, is that it helps organize app windows that aren't running full screen or in a Split View, with the ability to create window groups.

It improves on Split View, as it is not restricted to just 2 windows, it is much easier to create and modify Stage Manager window groups than set up or modify a Split View, and you have a lot more control over placement and sizing. And Split View is there for situations where it's preferred (I like to run two Safari windows in one).

And I find some things that I used to run full screen, just to lift them out of the chaos of randomly placed overlapping windows, work just as well as their own window group. The chaos is all gone, and with both the window group thumbnails and desktop items hidden (a click on desktop reveals them), it is very much to my liking.

Mission Control works exactly the same when Stage Manager is enabled. It complements Stage Manager very well.

I would like to be able to enable keyboard shortcuts to cycle through the window groups, as one can on iPadOS.

I'm also a convert to it on my iPad Pro 12.9, though the use cases are a little different.

Agree with you, but I still haven't quite cracked a quick workflow setup. Would you mind sharing how you set up your groups? (ie. How you're using Stage Manager to make a split view like 'stage' with three windows? I'm not sure if it's the way I have the setting done, but I can't get it quite the same each time. And now and again, I can't get to a window and have to turn the stage manager on and off... again, I don't know if that's a glitch or me. Especially when I'm sharing my screen in Zoom or Meet; though that may be more about how Stage Manager handles multiple windows of those apps (an edge app in the case of my google meet windows).

(updated to say that after reading the reply above, I've persevered a bit and enjoy the quick access to groups of windows. I still seem to be missing something on that game's rules; the behaviour isn't consistent. I've also found that once I've got the 'stages' set (with settings treating windows individually, not by app) that using the dock or my keyboard shortcuts to toggle to windows works best. Switching to an active window brings with it the 'stage' I've positioned it on, which works independently on both my displays. I still occasionally 'break' those groups when I toggle using the stage manager thumbnails on the left, so either I'm just missing something or the way you group and ungroup windows is glitchy...)

 

[heretiq]

..
Mission Control works exactly the same when Stage Manager is enabled. It complements Stage Manager very well.
..

@martens I agree with you regarding the benefits of Stage Manager; however, I can't Mission Control to work properly when Stage Manager is enabled. Here's what I'm experiencing:

1. The three finger swipe-up works as expected to bring up the open windows
2. However, when I click a window, MacOS does not switch to that window --
   • Often it switches to a random stage from the Stage Manager Dock
   • Occasionally it will select the window that was clicked

I've searched for a setting that will allow Mission Control to work like Mission Control every time, but can't find one.

Can you explain what you've done to configure Mission Control and Stage Manager to allow both to work together .. and most importantly, to allow Mission Control to work "exactly the same when Stage Manager is enabled"?

Thoughts?

 

[Bazza1]

I have my Dock on the left side of my screen - taking advantage of width rather than height on my monitor (and not wishing to auto-hide it) - so Stage Manager moves its thumbnails to the right side of the screen, interfering with the displayed icons (Aliases) there. A Stage Manager setting will hide those icons, but that defeats the purpose of having them there. No way of adjusting location of thumbnails to accommodate either side of screen.
This is an improvement?

Back to rediscovering the value of Mission Control - which I have added as the bottom right hot corner.

 

[hivaoa]

@martens I agree with you regarding the benefits of Stage Manager; however, I can't Mission Control to work properly when Stage Manager is enabled. Here's what I'm experiencing:

1. The three finger swipe-up works as expected to bring up the open windows
2. However, when I click a window, MacOS does not switch to that window --
   • Often it switches to a random stage from the Stage Manager Dock
   • Occasionally it will select the window that was clicked

I've searched for a setting that will allow Mission Control to work like Mission Control every time, but can't find one.

Can you explain what you've done to configure Mission Control and Stage Manager to allow both to work together .. and most importantly, to allow Mission Control to work "exactly the same when Stage Manager is enabled"?

Thoughts?

Did you find a solution to your second problem?

 

[ignatius345]

I tried to get used to Stage Manager, but I was fighting a solid decade of using Mission Control. And to me it doesn't mesh at all well with using multiple desktops (Spaces).

 

[heretiq]

Did you find a solution to your second problem?

Yes! I filed an issue in the Feedback app during the Sonoma beta cycle. I received a reply from Apple advising me of changes they made in the next beta and asking me to test and provide feedback. I reported several improvements and several remaining issues and expected some more follow-up from Apple, but received none. However virtually all of the issues were fixed with the Sonoma GM release and I’m using Stage Manager and Mission Control without issue now.

 

[okkibs]

Mission Control and Stage Manager aren't mutually exclusive. With Stage Manager enabled you still retain Mission Control's features like virtual desktops, swipe gestures, hot corners and separate spaces for each display. There might be more but the only feature that I noticed that's missing and that I am missing is minimizing apps into the dock. The workaround cmd+h to hide that window is good enough, but it hides not just that window but every window of that application. That's a problem especially with multiple displays.

For now I'll keep Stage Manager enabled, the pro outweighs the con for me. The pro is seeing my most used windows in the left bar all the time - sorta like more virtual desktops. And each Mission Control virtual desktop can have its own set of Stage Manager windows on the left side.

I very rarely add more than a single window to a Stage Manager view, just using it to switch between open windows is very fast that way.

The big con is the way MacOS handles opening new windows and applications with Stage Manager enabled, every time I open or close a window, I am thrown into or left in a new/empty view. If you have to open and close a lot of new windows/apps all the time Stage Manager is terrible.

I plan on disabling Stage Manager again at some point to see if I'll miss it.