OS X Mountain Lion Bible

Using Spaces and Mission Control

The App Exposé capability in the Dock is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of OS X's abilities to maneuver through application and Finder windows. OS X also has a capability called Spaces and one called Mission Control that work together with Exposé to give you quick access to all your running applications, the Dashboard, open windows, and those collections of applications known as spaces.

Here's a quick overview of what these three navigation features do:

• App Exposé: As shown in Figure 2.10 earlier in this chapter, this feature gives you quick access to various windows in the current application. Choose Show All Windows from the contextual menu for the application's icon in the Dock to see all of its windows

• Spaces: This feature in essence lets you set up multiple desktops (each called a space), each showing the windows of just the applications you specify. It's a handy way to organize your open windows by task, if you're someone who often has lots of applications running simultaneously. Figure 2.11 shows the Mac screen as I switch from one space to another via a gesture. You also can switch via keyboard shortcuts and via Mission Control.

• Mission Control: This feature lets you see everything going on in one view, as Figure 2.12 shows: Each space is displayed at the top, and each application's set of open windows displays as a group of windows below. In addition to using the keyboard shortcuts, you can get the Mission Control view by using ...