I'm trying to figure this out too. I drag things from the desktop into apps constantly, so until I find a way to do this, Stage Manager is a nonstarter for me.
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What is the point of Stage Manager when we have Spaces?
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I found it, it shows the desktop items. You can do it under stage manager "customise" option
I feel like I'm grasping at a future elegant interface that's light and wonderful to use, but it occasionally slaps you in the face with either a bug or something unexpected.
Working well 95% of the time over the course of a day is not good enough. The 5% of bugs/confusion is too much.
If I keep it light and mostly single app stages (on my personal laptop) it's usually fine. Moving to multiple 2-3 window stages on my work machine, can get weird and bring out issues.
The big one is that sometimes bugs out and I end up with an un-clickable stage thumbnail stack that does nothing. Futzing about with other stages and windows tends to free it somehow eventually, but this has happened to me many times already in a short period of time, and I don't have a good mental model of what's happening or how to fix it. It's usually a stage with more than one app.
Sometimes a window has disappeared and I don't know where, and I have to open expose to find it. Everything is so managed I'm not sure this is a bug or it just dropping off recently used stages. It's hard to tell.
But outside of bugs, the following kills me...
That said, I like the concept, but I'm worried people are going to be put off by it in its current state. I think it's just not ready for anything beyond very basic/light use. It removes all the constant paper-cuts of window management but periodically gives you a nasty, deeper infected gash in exchange.
Working well 95% of the time over the course of a day is not good enough. The 5% of bugs/confusion is too much.
If I keep it light and mostly single app stages (on my personal laptop) it's usually fine. Moving to multiple 2-3 window stages on my work machine, can get weird and bring out issues.
The big one is that sometimes bugs out and I end up with an un-clickable stage thumbnail stack that does nothing. Futzing about with other stages and windows tends to free it somehow eventually, but this has happened to me many times already in a short period of time, and I don't have a good mental model of what's happening or how to fix it. It's usually a stage with more than one app.
Sometimes a window has disappeared and I don't know where, and I have to open expose to find it. Everything is so managed I'm not sure this is a bug or it just dropping off recently used stages. It's hard to tell.
But outside of bugs, the following kills me...
- If stage manager is fitting 6 stages maximum, and to be productive I gravitate to 7 or 8 logical stages I'm switching between, I end up with a part-hidden mess of obscurity. This is a big frustration, you should be able to page down with the scroll wheel at the side and bring up older stages like you can with the iOS task switcher to bring up previous apps... I'm not saying it has to be 'infinity' long, but the default 4-5-6 stages (depending on monitor size) is too low. I want/need more. I just can't get around **** automatically disappearing. I thought I could, but it doesn't work.
- If you want to drag a window off a stage which has multiple apps, and you click and drag, it seems to always grab the top one, or the last window you used on top on that stage, I think. I want to be able to pick which one to drag off! Right now I have to go to that stage, pick the app so it's top. They go back to the other stage I want to drag it to, repeat the attempt. I can deal with it, but it took me ages to work this out. It's a lot of mental effort. I feel like if the stage thumbnails just went into mini-expose with a cursor hover intent it would be more elegant and quick to pick which one you want.
That said, I like the concept, but I'm worried people are going to be put off by it in its current state. I think it's just not ready for anything beyond very basic/light use. It removes all the constant paper-cuts of window management but periodically gives you a nasty, deeper infected gash in exchange.
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In my opinion it was added to macOS to try and make iPadOS look more "mac like"... There is a reason Apple abandoned it years ago when they initially developed it. Apple just needs to bring macOS to the iPad already for those that want it.
Such a trash feature. I don't want to upgrade to new MacOS and Apple is litarally forcing everyone to upgrade now
it's the main feature why actually i'm not keen on upgrading from Monterey, even when the initial incompatibilities have been fixed, or confirmed to be non-existent
Mac people often made fun of Windows, which often comes pre-installed with half baked bloatware.
the difference is though: most of that Windows stuff are custom additions from hardware manufacturers, while this one is baked in, even in a "clean system install"
No I love it too! Been using the Beta for a while so I'm already used to it. I was saying the same stuff as you on here until I used it for a while.
When using Stage Manager with multiple spaces, I can only trigger the Stage Manager overlay by mousing to the left edge of the screen on the first space. That gesture does not work on any other space, thus in order to use it I have to size down my apps a bit to allow stage manager to show up.
Is this a bug or a feature?
Is this a bug or a feature?
Try it and like it (mac mini M1 + ASD), BUT :
1 - Should be better if stage manager could be disabled on certains spaces (those I don't need stage manager)
2 - @gank41 @zhenya , thanks for the "feature" explanation
I was confused why mousing to the left of screen was not working as expected(i.e. Showing stage manager). I had never read anywhere that was working ONLY on first space
I hope apple will work and add new features to stage manager because I think it's a good alternative to Mission Control/Spaces for certains workflow (my case : Developpement)
1 - Should be better if stage manager could be disabled on certains spaces (those I don't need stage manager)
2 - @gank41 @zhenya , thanks for the "feature" explanation
I was confused why mousing to the left of screen was not working as expected(i.e. Showing stage manager). I had never read anywhere that was working ONLY on first space I hope apple will work and add new features to stage manager because I think it's a good alternative to Mission Control/Spaces for certains workflow (my case : Developpement)
Do we know why? Feels kind of annoying as I am a heavy user of spaces, but typically have so many windows open that stage manager might help keep that stuff organized a bit better.
It does look like it could do something like that, yes. Specifically to your question, a lot of Stage Manager is just incomplete, and has been for a few months now. The same complaints from devs across the board since it was first beta tested, was that it's borked & incomplete.
In practice, it's more cumbersome to use, workflows seem... just not intuitive at all? Opening a link in one app that also has a Safari page open in that Stage, opens a new Stage and Safari Window? Or something? Why does it not just open in a new tab? Wait, sometimes it does? I found I was spending more time trying to navigate around and even just figure out what I was doing, than actually doing whatever I wanted to do. I also find Mission Control & Spaces to work wonderfully on both the smaller screens of my iPad Pro and M1 MBP, but also with the larger screen connected to my Mac mini. A swipe or two, maybe a gesture up and one click.. I'm all about less clicks. Stage Manager makes me want to click a lot. Why bother..
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But don't just take my word for it, there's been plenty posted about it on these forums. This post alone, dedicated to Stage Manager, has 7 pages of discussion...
I upgraded to Ventura the other day and gave Stage Manager a try. I'm sorry but it's just not for me.
I expect Stage Manager to be per Space but it appears as if SM is on, then it's on for all Spaces. I use Spaces, Mission Control and Desktops a lot and love fullscreen applications. I use Cmd + Tab to switch between apps.
I would give SM more of a try if it was Space independent, meaning I could have it enabled for one space but not for another.
I expect Stage Manager to be per Space but it appears as if SM is on, then it's on for all Spaces. I use Spaces, Mission Control and Desktops a lot and love fullscreen applications. I use Cmd + Tab to switch between apps.
I would give SM more of a try if it was Space independent, meaning I could have it enabled for one space but not for another.
The only way I can see to remove it from Control Center is to set it as “Show in Menu Bar” in Settings. You gain the space in Control Center but then have it in the Menu Bar.
:::Correction:::
Nope! Still puts it in both places that way..
Ugh
By accident, I managed to get rid of it
I think it was enabled in Menu Bar, I held command and dragged it out and it didn't show up after restart.
Stage Manager seems like a more chaotic, and less keyboard friendly, version of Spaces to me. The idea is the same: group apps together by workflow. With Spaces, the user has strict control of it and everything behaves predictably (for me anyway). But Stage Manager is chaotic - sometimes apps combine into piles unexpectedly, sometimes the piles uncombine unexpectedly. There are no keyboard shortcuts (that I know of). I'm going to stick with Spaces.
I've found only one useful feature of the Stage Manager, and that's a side effect for enhancing the Mission Control:
When SM is on and you minimize a window, it's actually not being minimized but moved to the SM (which effectively is almost the same, "almost" because settings like pause playback when minimized don't work in this case), and so when you use Mission Control you can see also those "minimized" windows. That's all that I found useful about it.
Now here are questionable or outright dumb things about SM:
- Only 6 thumbnails max (just 4 in my case), not adjustable in settings.
- Idiotic system of windows grouping and ungrouping when one needs to drag thumbnails to center window to add the latter to the group. So if the group include 3 windows, you'll need to drag 3 times to just add one window. Well, you also can shift-click a thumbnail group, but then again you'll also will have to shift-click 3 times. Maybe that's me who hasn't quite understood how it works or it's really that idiotic?
- You can't choose which window to open from a window group, you'll need to open them all just to bring to the screen the "bottom" one. WTF??
- Only one open window on the screen in any given time unless it was grouped with other(s). This "feature" alone makes the whole thing almost useless. F.e. I see some numbers in browser and want to calculate - I open calculator and oops - the browser window disappears. I can't be bothered to group windows just to calculate some numbers or make a note using some data from other window.
Well, I've turned the SM on for the time being, but only for the reason described in the beginning ("minimized" windows visible in the Mission Control). I also set the MC to bottom left active corner and turned off windows thumbnails in the SM setting, so effectively I'm using only its useful side effect. But given the last "feature" from the bad things I noticed, it won't be long till I turn the SM off.
When SM is on and you minimize a window, it's actually not being minimized but moved to the SM (which effectively is almost the same, "almost" because settings like pause playback when minimized don't work in this case), and so when you use Mission Control you can see also those "minimized" windows. That's all that I found useful about it.
Now here are questionable or outright dumb things about SM:
- Only 6 thumbnails max (just 4 in my case), not adjustable in settings.
- Idiotic system of windows grouping and ungrouping when one needs to drag thumbnails to center window to add the latter to the group. So if the group include 3 windows, you'll need to drag 3 times to just add one window. Well, you also can shift-click a thumbnail group, but then again you'll also will have to shift-click 3 times. Maybe that's me who hasn't quite understood how it works or it's really that idiotic?
- You can't choose which window to open from a window group, you'll need to open them all just to bring to the screen the "bottom" one. WTF??
- Only one open window on the screen in any given time unless it was grouped with other(s). This "feature" alone makes the whole thing almost useless. F.e. I see some numbers in browser and want to calculate - I open calculator and oops - the browser window disappears. I can't be bothered to group windows just to calculate some numbers or make a note using some data from other window.
Well, I've turned the SM on for the time being, but only for the reason described in the beginning ("minimized" windows visible in the Mission Control). I also set the MC to bottom left active corner and turned off windows thumbnails in the SM setting, so effectively I'm using only its useful side effect. But given the last "feature" from the bad things I noticed, it won't be long till I turn the SM off.
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