OSX Lion Spaces & desktop files

desktopmission-controlspaces

When I switch between spaces, after the transition effect the files on the previous desktop fade back in, so that the same files are on every desktop.

Is it possible to keep separate files on separate Spaces desktops?

Best Answer

It's not; there is only one "Desktop" folder in your home directory, and the contents of that folder determine what appears on all of your desktops.

One problem with allowing varying sets of files for various desktops wouldn't that it's not clear what should happen if you delete a secondary desktop. Where would the files on that desktop go? Lion has made it relatively painless to add and remove desktops, so it's a user experience question that would have to be addressed.

That said, in theory someone could probably write an app that would let you do this. I believe the system sends out notifications when the active desktop changes, so you could probably write an app that watched for those changes and then swapped out the contents of the ~/Desktop/ folder for you. But as far as I'm aware, nobody has written that app yet.

Related Solutions

Speed up the transition between spaces

What you are looking for is TotalSpaces.

The new version has the ability to remove the delay completely. Working great so far.

Forced switching between Spaces when opening Microsoft Office files

I've long experienced this problem, too. Haven't found any 'good' solutions, so put together some Applescripts that partially address the problem. It's very much a kludge and not a perfect solution, and deploying the scripts in a given user's workflow is a matter of individual taste.

Here's code to open an MS Word document in a space that doesn't have any Word windows without first triggering a shift to a space with a Word window open:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Microsoft Word" to tell menu bar 1 to tell menu bar item 3 to tell menu 1 to click menu item 1 --open
tell application "Microsoft Word" to activate

And this script will close an MS Word document without triggering a switch to another space (if it was the last Word window open in the current space):

--Is there another window of the app in this space? If so, don't need to shift to another app before closing
tell application "System Events" to tell application process "Microsoft Word" to set _theWindows to name of every window as list
set WinNum to number of strings of _theWindows --(Office puts weird other things in the list)
if WinNum = 1 then --i.e., it is the only window in the space
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke tab using command down --switch to another app
    delay 0.1
    tell application "System Events" to set visible of application process "Microsoft Word" to true --in case there is a close dialog I still need to see
    delay 0.1
end if
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Microsoft Word" to tell menu bar 1 to tell menu bar item 3 to tell menu 1 to click menu item "Close" --close

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Speed up the transition between spaces

Forced switching between Spaces when opening Microsoft Office files

Related Question