What is the point of Stage Manager when we have Spaces?

[haralds]

I have been using Spaces for years. My open apps are grouped by functionality in specific spaces like
1. Productivity
2. Music and Media
3. Xcode/Development/Logic Pro etc
4. Virtual Machines control
I disable the reordering of spaces and have keyboard shortcuts enabled. Navigation is with the keys or Cmd-Tab. I sometimes will also swipe on Trackpad or Magic Mouse.
Stage Manager is work in progress. Currently, it is disruptive since it does not return to the Windows state before turning it on and it is missing keyboard toggles.

 

[dugbug]

im curious if these are more useful than spaces. Id like to flatten those 'piles' though, and make the spaces bar auto-disappear. I could get down with this in concept but how it works with maximizing windows, how it works with window-to-left and window-to-right, etc. will matter to me.

 

[Traverse]

I disable the reordering of spaces and have keyboard shortcuts enabled.

I know this is just me ano that I’m odd - but enabling this feature really is a massive improvement IF IT WASN’T for the fact that when you take an application full screen it adds it to the right-most space rather than the space immediately to the right of the desktop.

I acknowledge that this approach is the logical one, but for some reason it breaks my mind. Maybe because of the animation? But I find it jarring when I take something full screen (which is really only Music, Plex, and an occasional other) that I swip to the left and don’t see the desktop, but the original full-screen app.

 

[mxrider88]

I might be missing something here; I just don't understand what the benefit of Stage Manager is when Spaces offers similar benefits.

Stage Manager puts app windows into 'clusters' that can be switched on the fly using a menu on the left (which, I should point out, hurts to look at).

But Spaces already does this, and I imagine for most people it's probably more effective. We can already setup multiple 'desktop' screens where app windows can be organised as the user wishes. If the user doesn't have multiple monitors then it can still be used, you can set a specific wallpaper for each Space, you can use trackpad gestures to switch between Spaces and it doesn't require the left side of the screen to be a holding area for the said app clusters.

The only advantage I can think of is that there's synergy between iPadOS and macOS, but that just highlights why converging the two operating systems isn't smart. The System Settings UI redesign is a prime example.

Thoughts?

I was wondering the same.

 

[mxrider88]

The best UI for spaces was back in the days with snow leopard imho.

 

[dburkhanaev]

I've got used to switching to space 'n' with CTRL n

Take four fingers on your trackpad and "push" up. Spaces appear and you can mouse over all of the open desktops in one preview. Quick and easy. Gestures are your friend!

 

[DoFoT9]

Take four fingers on your trackpad and "push" up. Spaces appear and you can mouse over all of the open desktops in one preview. Quick and easy. Gestures are your friend!

This has always been my workflow also, until the gestures stop working (like they currently have for me - too lazy to reboot!).

 

[hans1972]

Take four fingers on your trackpad and "push" up. Spaces appear and you can mouse over all of the open desktops in one preview. Quick and easy. Gestures are your friend!

Yes, but when you know which space every applications resides on, its just quicker to use a keyboard shortcut.

My "Office" space is #2 so I always know I can just hit Ctrl-2 to get to Word, Excel or Powerpoint.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Are there any changes to accessing the desktop (or lack of) in Stage Manager in the latest beta? I don't fully understand why this is disabled.

 

[tomtad]

Are there any changes to accessing the desktop (or lack of) in Stage Manager in the latest beta? I don't fully understand why this is disabled.

Yes. When you begin to drag a file in an open window the Desktop fades into view behind showing your icons. That’s all I’ve spotted so far.

 

[dburkhanaev]

Yes, but when you know which space every applications resides on, its just quicker to use a keyboard shortcut.

My "Office" space is #2 so I always know I can just hit Ctrl-2 to get to Word, Excel or Powerpoint.

True. I also always use 4 virtual desktops arranged categorically and I changed the shortcuts to cmd +1-4 to quick switch.

 

[Novius89]

i have my dock o the left side, somebody knows how it will work with that? Didn't install the beta, but as a user of spaces I can see myself using this in my workflow as well.

Having spaces for entertainment and for my college assignments, im only afraid it will not work good with the dock on the left ( and no I don't wanna put it on the right because of my second screen and the bottom is a no-go for me as well)

 

[canopic]

You are right, it shares a lot in common with spaces / mission control. But mission control has been somewhat of a failure. It hasn’t stopped peoples windows from degenerating into a complete mess, whereas Stage Manager seems to do exactly that by default with no work. If you don’t think window mess is an unsolved problem I could point you to many, many people I’ve seen use MacOS

Spaces is kind of a “pretty” implementation of virtual desktops from the Linux world. For me it’s fine for switching between two spaces (max) that are very different (eg work and play) but doesn’t extend well beyond that basic functionality. It’s slow to use (swiping animation) and it’s slow to instantiate the thumbnail/overview mode. I don’t think many people use/like spaces because it’s unintuitive. Our ideal “virtual desktops” are not long strips to the left/right with no overview.

Stage manager looks comparatively FAST and you can always see an overview of what apps are grouped in each one, you click between them and it’s pretty instant interaction. Also clicking the desktop to show desktop is a clever/fast interaction that cuts down steps or shortcut keys.

There have always been complaints about how the dock is bad at being a windows manager - it is, it’s pretty much just good at being a pretty launcher. Windows OSs “dock” does do a better job of this, hover and app icon and it pops up with thumbnails of the apps open windows.

But Stage manger is apple basically relegating the dock to being exactly just a launcher, and solving this window management problem elsewhere. Which I think makes sense.

Stage manager looks neat in that it should help normal users manage their windows, while also being useful for power users.

 

[HMI]

Can you use Stage Manager with Spaces?

So, each desktop in Spaces has its own unique instance of Stage Manager?
Can that be done?

 

[adrianlondon]

Can you use Stage Manager with Spaces?

So, each desktop in Spaces has its own unique instance of Stage Manager?
Can that be done?

Yes.

Although at the moment, I've gone back to just using spaces.

I have my dock on the left and run some apps in their own space in zoomed size (ie full-screen but with the dock and menubar showing). SM breaks this as re-opening an app will never re-open zoomed, only windowed. Plus I didn't like the fact opening another window in an app minimised the current window. And finally, I found it tricky to drag files from the desktop into an app. I'll give SM another go each beta to see if it grows on me.

 

[retlif]

One question. Does the Stage Manager remember the position of windows on a configuration with multiple monitors?

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Spaces is kind of a “pretty” implementation of virtual desktops from the Linux world. For me it’s fine for switching between two spaces (max) that are very different (eg work and play) but doesn’t extend well beyond that basic functionality. It’s slow to use (swiping animation) and it’s slow to instantiate the thumbnail/overview mode.

Have you tried the 'Reduce motion' option? I'm fairly certain it's faster (that goes for all the other animations, too)

 

[ponzicoinbro]

I know this is just me ano that I’m odd - but enabling this feature really is a massive improvement IF IT WASN’T for the fact that when you take an application full screen it adds it to the right-most space rather than the space immediately to the right of the desktop.

I acknowledge that this approach is the logical one, but for some reason it breaks my mind. Maybe because of the animation? But I find it jarring when I take something full screen (which is really only Music, Plex, and an occasional other) that I swip to the left and don’t see the desktop, but the original full-screen app.

It’s an iPad feature that looks like clutter on macOS.

Opening multiple windows in a single app like Finder becomes terrible.

Hiding Desktop icons when using this makes no sense too. Users often need to keep an eye on their desktop files and open document at the same time.

It’s just so gimmicky and cluttery. When Apple introduced Exposé people immediately loved it and there were no mixed reactions. This Stage Manager is getting mostly positive reactions on iPad forums and almost all negative on macOS forums.

Stacks is the same botched feature.

We should be able to select any files and make a custom stack from the selection.

But Apple instead decided Stacks are made based on file type so when we enable it each stack on the Desktop are made of files from different projects. That is not good file management.

 

[unrigestered]

it's indeed unnecessary additional clutter.

not that everything it does is bad/poor, but macOS basically already has had tools for this before.
these should have been improved, instead of slapping yet another one onto macOS that's trying to do the same things again.

macOS already has:
- the Dock
- Exposé
- Spaces
- Mission Control

all of them with their own shortcomings

why not integrate some of it's good features inside the Dock and Mission Control instead of trying to add a fifth "solution" with again it's own shortcomings?
(answer: because it's way easier and a fast "fix" for Apple)

if Stage Manager was actually that great, it should be replacing the Dock
but Apple is "confident" enough in it, that it is just a feature that can be enabled and disabled on demand instead of being an integral part that actually works just awesome

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

why not integrate some of it's good features inside the Dock and Mission Control instead of trying to add a fifth "solution" with again it's own shortcomings?
(answer: because it's way easier and a fast "fix" for Apple)

This to me is the underlying issue. Though the iPad has a dock as well, it lacks many features that the Mac one has (including many multitasking features) and thus Stage Manager being a separate mode makes sense as one would use their iPad entirely in this manner for their work period.

But on the Mac this feature could have easily been incorporated into the dock, making far more sense given this is the area where minimised apps drop down to.

They could have even added a hover function to the U.I to temporarily 'fan' out the apps present in that cluster, a bit like Stacks.

 

[Tagbert]

It’s an iPad feature that looks like clutter on macOS.

Opening multiple windows in a single app like Finder becomes terrible.

Hiding Desktop icons when using this makes no sense too. Users often need to keep an eye on their desktop files and open document at the same time.

It’s just so gimmicky and cluttery. When Apple introduced Exposé people immediately loved it and there were no mixed reactions. This Stage Manager is getting mostly positive reactions on iPad forums and almost all negative on macOS forums.

Stacks is the same botched feature.

We should be able to select any files and make a custom stack from the selection.

But Apple instead decided Stacks are made based on file type so when we enable it each stack on the Desktop are made of files from different projects. That is not good file management.

i never understood keeping files on the desktop. It’s a disorganized single space and doesn’t offer much more convenience than a finder window. I never needed to use Stacks.

I hate using File Open dialogs because you end up navigating the the same locations over and over again. I use double-click and drag-n-drop to open files in various apps. Sometimes I open a file in more than one app, sequentially. I keep a Finder window with several tabs open to folders that I use regularly. I always have one for downloads, for the screen capture folder, and for each of the projects I’m currently working on. It lets me keep my files organized by project and gives easy access to them. I only wish that Finder offered the option to restore tabs on restart the way that Safari does.

Spaces never worked for me as I typically am working with multiple apps at once and always felt like it was a fight to move things between spaces. Stage Manager looks interesting but I’m not ready to install a beta to try the details. We’ll see how it evolves over the summer and maybe I’ll feel brave enough to install one of the late betas.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

i never understood keeping files on the desktop.

Dude 99% of users download to desktop and use it as the ‘current workspace’

It’s called desktop for a reason.

It’s supposed to simulate a desk with current documents on it.

They don’t ’keep’ files there unless for a special reason. It’s the files they need right now while they are working.

Who the hell wants to dig through finder windows for the documents they are working on right now? Nobody who wants to be speedy and efficient.

 

[unrigestered]

most of my apps are either maximized or full screen, so i'd have to "dig"
to get to my desktop too

the only things that appear on my desktop are connected external drives to remind me that i should dismount them first before pulling the plugs

 

[wonderings]

I just installed Ventura as a VM to check some things out. Nothing really that impressive on a cursory glance. Not a fan of the new system preferences being narrow like on a phone. I keep instinctively wanting to grab a corner and stretch it out. I tried out Stage Manager and like many I just don't get why it is needed. I use Spaces, I keep specific apps in 4 different spaces for different tasks. I use hot corners to jump between them and it all flows well with a flick of the wrists and a click. Stages to me just seemed like having another dock. I am sure I am missing something with what it can all do, but it just seemed to keep bigger icons off to the side rather then in the dock. I would think it would be better integrated into the dock somehow for whatever other features Stage Manager brings to the table that I am not aware of. Feels like losing some valuable real estate as well on a 14" M1 Max having them off to the left like that. Visually it looks like it could be added to the dock to give the same sort of workflow.

 

[gank41]

This has always been my workflow also, until the gestures stop working (like they currently have for me - too lazy to reboot!).

You can also enter 'killall Dock' in Terminal to relaunch Mission Control. That usually (but not always?!?) fixes the Gesture for it when it stops working for me. I also keep Mission Control in the dock in case I'm in Full Screen and can't swipe back. When the Gesture for Mission Control stops working, for me, no Gestures work...