I started the following post back in August of 2011; Sean’s comment on my previous post prompted me to dig it up.
Now that I’m back to using a laptop full time, I’m right back to the old hassle of having my windows scatter all over the place when I connect and disconnect an external display. It looks like this is an annoyance I share with others, as there are a bunch of utilities out there that hope to solve this problem:
I evaluated a variety of options:
I can’t remember the details of each at this point, but I tried a couple of them for a week or so each (pretty sure I did both Stay and Display Maid, can’t recall on Size-Up or Optimal Layout).
After evaluating a few options, I saw the same problems consistently:
- While windows would be restored most of the time, they wouldn’t be restored all of the time. The difference here was better than default OS X window handling, but not that much better.
- There was no option to pull all apps to one desktop when plugged in to a monitor, then distribute them again when unplugged. I’m assuming this is an API/SDK limitation as this seems like a pretty obvious feature idea.
The solution I ended up with is less than ideal: let OS X handle the window distribution and learn to work on a laptop with only a single desktop. I still go back to multiple desktops if I’m going to be unplugged for a long stretch of time, but moving things back and forth between desktops is way too fiddly.
I’m certainly open to better solutions (or new ones that have come out in the last six months) – suggest away in the comments.
Give Moom a shot. Like the other solutions it can be a bit schitzo, but it does help a lot. It’ll do the pre-configured layouts that you want and arrange differently based in the number of monitors in use.
At this point if it doesn’t support distributing apps to multiple desktops (and consolidating them again), I’m really not in the market for any other features.
From what I understand that’ll be a sticky point for a while. The reason nobody does it is because in 10.7 Apple removed the APIs for applications to manage shuffling applications across Spaces/Desktops. I’m looking for a link to back that up but now I can’t find it.
I’m starting to wonder now if this couldn’t just be accomplished with a little Applescript and JSON. Ok, A LOT of Applescript 😉
Let me know when it’s ready to beta test. 🙂
Hey Alex, as the developer for Display Maid I’m definitely interested in your feed back. When you speak about distributing and consolidating apps across multiple desktops, are you referring to multiple Spaces? I’m guessing you don’t mean across multiple monitors since that is the main function of Display Maid.
I’m not sure that moving windows between spaces is possible with the currently available APIs. With Apple’s push towards sandboxing I’d be shocked if they update these much since they no longer want apps messing with other apps. I’ll do a little more digging though.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. You’re correct, I’m talking about multiple Spaces. I too am concerned that this already is or will be technically impossible; hence my move away from this type of tool.
How is it that Apple, with all their millions in the bank, can’t spare a few developers to fix this annoyance that has existed forever? They haven’t added a worthwhile feature to OS X in years. It’s only a matter of time till Ubuntu becomes polished enough to be a veritable threat. Sigh….