Desktop Underpinnings
Last week, I posted my thoughts on Apple’s new Mission Control feature within Mac OS X Lion. Chris Parker pointed out an inaccuracy, so I’d like to address it. I had complained that Apple removed the ability to pin an application to a particular space (or to all spaces). This is not the case, and I should have realized it, because my applications were actually following my prior settings; I just hadn’t realized it with the change to a single row of spaces. The functionality is still there, but it is hidden, and not particularly discoverable. Whereas in Leopard, space assignment was managed in the Spaces preference pane, Lion does away with the centralized list, putting the settings on each individual application. You must now navigate to the desktop to which you wish to pin an application, right-click the application icon in the dock, select Options, and then choose either All Desktops, This Desktop, or None in the sub-menu.
Once you know this, it is more convenient than having to open the preference pane. It’s less abstract. But, it’s hidden, buried two-levels into a right-click menu. My rule is that right-click menus are for shortcuts, not the only way to access a function. I would expect the same options to be included in the Window menu of the application.
