Alright, so perhaps you're a n00b to the notion of multiple desktops. That would make you pretty much a luddite today, but it's still possible there are a few of you out there. And in this case, Spaces might seem like a pretty novel concept and in fact work rather nicely. And if you have a single small monitor, Spaces is a reasonable way to increase your desktop workspace.

But if you are a seasoned vet of multiple desktops or have more than one monitor, Spaces is perhaps the worst thing that has come out of

Apple

  yet IMO. In fairness, check out my post that Time

Mac

 hine is perhaps one of the most brilliant things yet to come out of

Apple

 . My god they can be frustrating.

My issues:

• Why didn't they go with a simple representation of the screens at the bottom corner like every other *nix implementation? I mean really. The "pull back, go black and show you everything" is pretty and all, but a foul distraction from my workflow. They could have easily added an option for me to have a less pretty but wholly functional grid somewhere that shows me, *all the time* each desktop so that one click and boom! I'm there. Again, if you're a n00b and you have 2..4 spaces, perhaps that's just fine. I have 8 and that's not  enough. I have tons of apps open and use my

  mac

   hine hard... the pantywaist graphic hooie just doesn't cut it.


• Using a corner to activate the graphic ick that is the spaces switcher is terrible because I often accidentally go to the corner. So I shut that off. And control-number is hard because I have to remember what is on each screen. And control-arrows sucks because with 8 or 9 spaces I have to work hard to remember where I am and where I want to go, as opposed to simply clicking on it. And the drop down menu in the menu bar sucks because I cannot name the spaces. Horrible. Does anyone at

  apple

    beyond twenty-something hipsters use their OS?


• The all-or-nothing mechanism is PURE SHIT. So I either need to have something in a space, or in all spaces. Here's a trick to make this really easy, and it was already done very effectively by any number of switchers before you

  Apple

   : Allow me to turn switching on or off BY MONITOR NOT BY APP. Guess what? I like to leave a couple browser windows open on monitor 2 and 3, and switch my huge one dead in front of me (# 4) where I have a couple browser windows open based on which space I am in, and on monitor 5 to my right I have iChat, The Notebook, iTunes etc which I don't want to switch. OK, so I can go and tell Spaces that I want iTunes to be in every space. But suddenly, if I DO want iTunes to switch, I could just drag it to my #4 monitor and it would go... leaving #5 open as real estate for ... whatever I need to do that moment. And here's a REALLY stupid thing: since I can't make multiple instances of Safari, Safari is all switched or on every space. Meaning that I can't have a browser open with this app on this space, and another browser window open with this app on that space... This is just TERRIBLY ill thought out, and a perfect example of

  Apple

   's graphics boys being more enthralled with trying to be unique, than effective... which is really un-

  Apple

   .

Apple

  - you are well known and touted by me almost daily to be the best user interface and usability folks on the pl

anet

 . You create marvelous things that empower people. This time you screwed it up badly. I'm hoping that CodeTek upgrades their virtual desktop application to Leopard and right quick, because Spaces is *almost enough* for me to switch back to Tiger, thank you very much.

OK, rant over,
/perk

The  "pull back, go black and show you everything" kind of sounds like Compiz Fusion. Is it like that Perk?

Ex:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PAgul9Yci_0&feature=related

That's cool... there are several products that do similar things like that for the

Mac

 , or at least they did for Tiger and the Leopard versions are not out yet. Looks like someone had a blast writing that...

The 3D thang looks like YouDesktop and the one where 4 desktops are aligned in one horizontal row that you can move stuff across is what Spaces looks like. The problem is that that is ALL it looks like. In fairness, that's a reasonable GUI for a lot of people - one of my problems is that with a bunch of monitors interestingly aligned, 8 instances of <my monitor layout> looks like a freaking disaster. It's so messy looking I can barely look at it.

I think it's all pretty and cool that folks can write that stuff, but I'm a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy - just let me click into another space and see a nice little grid on the screen all the time. Nothing fancy... it should help me more that distract me. Although pretty, even all that 3D rolling around jazz and such would be an eyesore to me as well.

Compiz Fusion was originally designed by people who thought that 3d graphics cards should have something to do when you're not playing games. Actually Compiz Fusion is the product of the merging of Beryl and Compiz. There are a plethora of neat effects you can do and of course it has its own scripting language and is open source so you can create any effects you want. The most common is to have a window vanish in a blue flame and puff of smoke when you close it. Pretty neat eye candy.

I'm a command line guy at heart though. It's nice to have my 16 terminal windows open and be able to wobble them around and then when I get pissed, I can torch them.

virtual desktops are something I have never been able to get behind. I need more monitors, not more virtual ones.  Switching is more hassle than its worth in every version of it that I have tried, and I have tried a lot of them. Just doesnt do it for me. I have found that I probably need 4 monitors.

I have 5 monitors and 8 virtual desktops on my primary. It's the only way I can organize all I have going on at one time. I imagine that I'm not that typical, so

Apple

  probably isn't going to listen to my complaints  :


<edit>HAD 8 virtuals with CodeTek... I'm so frustrated that I'm running 2 right now and just tiling windows. Fishing Spaces.</edit>

I agree NB, more monitors needed here too.

I ran into a similar problem on 'certain'

linux

 
distros, over the xmas holiday me and a pal
installed just about every single new one they
have out there and some of them would open
certain windows on all spaces...

Compiz was kinda buggy with my monitors and seemed to
crash on gutsy gibbon so i ditched that for xp with two visiontek
radeons (dual monitor cards with svhs output) , four monitors, and
a big screen tv for a semicircle of tiger themed radiation.

.. dont even need the heat on in that room anymore.

i agree with perk too, having as little in the way of my add
as possible with 5 monitors, eliminates that wasteful, minimize,
alt-tab kind of motion that just seems to takes so
much weight out of my Dragster!!!

.... JM 

Man I get that

in that INSERT statement, is songid an autoincrementing index? If so, you don't need to put it in there or assign NULL to it.

lol, i just removed the post and when i did you
posted that... thanks, sb ill correct it.. lol

@@vs: thx!

in ms sql the @@identity could be retrieved
to represent the record just created.. how would
i access this, or just do a lookup immediately after>?


--------------

::warms hands::

a horizontal placement i
think is best.. then
brady bunch them inside
a darth vader circle concentration
take off your helmet pod thingy.

It was so nice to just see all this on
one line:

mysql_insert_id

returns the ID of the newly inserted row.

select LAST_INSERT_ID() from any mysql querying command