How can I eliminate the Spaces transition animation in Mountain Lion?

July 26, 2012 6:19 AM

Is it possible to eliminate the transition animation when switching between Spaces in Mountain Lion?

I have just upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. After a spot of tweaking I've got everything pretty much how I want it, except for one annoyance: the transition slide animation when moving from one Space to another is far too slow and makes my eyes hurt on the large monitor I use.

Can I (ideally) eliminate it altogether or at least speed up the transition?

posted by pharm to computers & internet (15 answers total)

Just to clarify: this is when using the keybindings to switch Spaces directly. The transition using Alt-Tab to switch between applications on different Spaces is much shorter.
posted by pharm at 6:28 AM on July 26, 2012

I could not agree more. And it's even worse with two big monitors. (First world problems, anyone?)

I may install this and give it a try-- allows getting rid of transition animations. There may be a Terminal-set pref as well...
posted by supercres at 6:33 AM on July 26, 2012

I just ran strings on the application and nothing jumped out at me, so while I bet there is a way, it might take some time before it becomes public. I'd suggest keeping an eye out on macosxhints.com.
posted by kimota at 7:09 AM on July 26, 2012

I can't see any preferences named in the binary at all kimota: running strings on it just gives me a stack of random-looking short strings: nothing that looks like a preferences name.

Which is odd, because I can look at my preferences .plist for the Dock and see some Spaces related preferences there.
posted by pharm at 7:41 AM on July 26, 2012

It probably is a preference under com.apple.dock. Here's a related hint for the speed of the Mission Control animation:

Make Mission Control Feel Snappier

Not sure if that directly affects the speed of Spaces transitions as well, but it might be a pointer in the right direction.
posted by McCoy Pauley at 7:50 AM on July 26, 2012

I noticed another problem with Parallels 7 if you are using multiple monitors and you want your PC on one and apple stuff on the other(s) you have to unclick the use Mac full screen mode... BUT Then the monitors ALL flicker and induce a vomit effect. Does anyone know a fix for that?
posted by mrgroweler at 8:06 AM on July 26, 2012

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to affect the Spaces transition McCoy :(

I've read elsewhere that the Spaces transition speed is related to how quickly you drag your fingers across your touchpad when using the relevant gesture. Sadly those of us without such hardware appear to get a very slow transition by default with no way to alter it.

mrgroweler: OSX and multiple monitors really don't get along.
posted by pharm at 8:33 AM on July 26, 2012

I have been using multiple monitors with Lion for a year and had zero issues though until yesterday No today the main monitor and one other literally are strobing when I have Parallels in full screen.
posted by mrgroweler at 9:03 AM on July 26, 2012

OK so I found the answer to the flicker problem. If you turn off 3d acceleration on the VM in Parallels the flicker goes away. I use this VM for business stuff so 3d is no big deal in case someone else has the same problem.
posted by mrgroweler at 9:09 AM on July 26, 2012

Late update! Just found this on Lifehacker:

How to Make Spaces Useable Again on Your Mac

In a nutshell:
1) Use Ctrl+number key to switch directly to a particular desktop, much faster than the slide animation you get with the arrow keys.

2) There's an app called TotalSpaces which evidently brings back some the Spaces features that went missing in Lion.
posted by McCoy Pauley at 10:49 AM on July 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

So if I rewire my brain to use a different set of shortcuts I can avoid the tortuous animation. I guess that's something. Have a tick. Half a tick maybe :)
posted by pharm at 1:48 PM on July 30, 2012

TotalSpaces lets you get rid of the transition; I'd been looking for exactly that ability and just installed it.
posted by mrbill at 2:51 PM on July 30, 2012

There are some things you can do at the command line to speed things up.
posted by dylan_k at 8:06 PM on August 1, 2012

That doesn't fix the Spaces transition animation unfortunately dylan_k, which is the really aggravating one.
posted by pharm at 3:05 AM on August 2, 2012

Well thank deity for that: the OSX 10.8.2 update appears to have fixed it.
posted by pharm at 4:25 AM on September 24, 2012