Is the lion broken or are we just incompatible??

April 14, 2012 11:51 AM

On Mac OS X Lion, is there a way to maintain the order of my full screen apps?

I generally like to have my various screens on my Macbook set up as:

1st screen) my desktop
2nd screen) Chrome
3rd screen) iTunes

But anytime I close one of those programs or restart my machine it resets everything and I have to manually rearrange them back to my preferred order. Is there some setting or terminal tweak or something that will keep everything the way I like?

posted by fishmasta to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

I think they're ordered by recently used. So if you command-tab to another application from Finder, that will be "adjacent" to the desktop. There's no way to manually rearrange them and maintain that order. Something like this. I think?
posted by jroybal at 12:10 PM on April 14, 2012

System Preferences -> Mission Control -> Uncheck "automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent used".

Bugged for a long time too!
posted by User7 at 12:19 PM on April 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

That's supposed to say: "Bugged me for a long time too!" As in, until I found that preference, it was driving me nuts.
posted by User7 at 12:20 PM on April 14, 2012

Response by poster: "Automatically rearrange space..." is already unchecked, but it still happens for some reason.
posted by fishmasta at 12:24 PM on April 14, 2012

Oh, I'm sorry, I just read your question carefully. As far as I know, no. If I close/reopen apps, I have to rearrange.

Without that setting it's truly maddening though as they rearrange just as you switch applications.

Sorry!
posted by User7 at 12:25 PM on April 14, 2012

Response by poster: No worries. I just can't imagine there's no fix for this.
posted by fishmasta at 12:28 PM on April 14, 2012

If you go to the dock menu for an application there's an option to assign which desktop/space it "belongs" to. Would that do the trick?
posted by O9scar at 1:45 PM on April 14, 2012

I don't know of any built-in option but I would suggest purchasing moom. It will allow you to save a default layout for how you want your application windows. I use it when I have a large external monitor connected and I'm working in different programs at the same time.
posted by andendau at 6:31 PM on April 14, 2012

On review maybe it wouldn't fix your problem. The multiple desktops don't seem to work well at staying where they need to be.
posted by andendau at 6:33 PM on April 14, 2012

Response by poster: O9scar, where's that setting? I can't seem to find it...
posted by fishmasta at 9:23 AM on April 15, 2012

If you right-click on an open application in the dock there's a popup. Under "options" you can assign a desktop to an application.
posted by O9scar at 3:24 PM on April 16, 2012