Group spaces and switch them in bulk like in the original Spaceman?

[JamesClark1991]

Hi there! I used the original version of Spaceman briefly and whilst it was very buggy but it provided me with a specific feature that I'm looking for. I have three displays total (Macbook Pro + two external monitors) and I want to be able to switch all three monitor's virtual desktops at once. E.g. I three finger swipe on my Macbook trackpad and all three desktops switch at once. Can you make this possible in your version of Spaceman please? I don't know of any other apps that can actually do this.

[ruittenb]

Hello @JamesClark1991 ,

I'm slightly confused. The jaysce version of Spaceman was not able to switch spaces and my own fork does not respond to swipes.

When you say that you have multiple monitors set up, are they all mirrors of your laptop screen, or do you use them to extend your desktop? In the latter case, you could try to turn off the "Displays have separate spaces" toggle (it will require logging in again). It is in System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Mission Control. The different monitors should then pan simultaneously.

Please let me know if this works for you.

[JamesClark1991]

I'm not sure which specific version of Spaceman I was using, I tested it around August last year. The three-finger swipe gesture I'm refering to is a MAC OS built in shortcut for switching desktops, so applies at an OS level.

The multiple monitors I am using are extended desktops. I've now turned off 'Displays Have Seperate Spaces' in MAC settings and it has provided me with a temporary solution to my problem so thank you for suggesting that. But changing this setting has actually brought up OS limitations such as fullscreening any window turning all my other displays black, and dragging windows to the top of the screen to open mission control is now disabled which was handy.

The other version of Spaceman that I tried gave me the potential to switch only two of my monitors at once and leave the third monitor unmodified, which was a handy alternative setup that's not possible with my current temporary solution.

[ruittenb]

Thanks for the update, and glad the "Displays have separate Spaces" toggle helped as a starting point.

The fullscreen limitation you're seeing (other displays going black) is unfortunately a known macOS trade-off of turning that setting off. This is not something I can address from Spaceman's side.

As for switching only some monitors at once, no version of Spaceman has ever been able to do that. Is it possible that at the time, you had one external monitor set to mirroring and the other to extending? Then a three-finger swipe would move two mirrors together while the extending monitor stays put. That would be a macOS behavior based on your display setup, not something Spaceman was doing. Or maybe you confused Spaceman with a different app?

Either way, macOS unfortunately does not offer any way to target space switching at a specific display, so this isn't something I'm able to add.

[JamesClark1991]

Cheers for the reply. Hmm, maybe I'm getting confused by what I was trying to achieve, rather than what was actually achieved. All of my displays were set to extended with their own spaces, and no mirrors. But it was a while ago, and a lot has happened since then... so maybe I'm misremembering.

Would there not be a way to add this functonality via keyboard shortcuts and mouse positions? For example: I would set groups of displays/spaces in Spaceman (as I was able to in the previous version I was talking about) e.g. displays 1, 2, 3 as a group and displays 4, 5, 6 as a group. Then Spaceman could redirect the mouse position to each of the selected monitors in this group one by one and run the default MAC OS Mission Control shortcut on each of them (CTRL+1, CTRL+2 etc), then finish with a command to return the mouse to its original position before the shortcuts were run.

So basically if I'm running my Macbook plus two external monitors as extended screens it would be:

1 - User three finger swipes to trigger Spaceman (or a shortcut button?)
2 - Spaceman reads the user-made space groups containing groups 1,2,3 and 4,5,6 and it then identifies that display group 1,2,3 is currently active.
3 - Runs CTRL+4 on current active monitor 1.
4 - Moves mouse pointer to centre of monitor 2, runs CRTL+5.
5 - Moves mouse pointer to centre of monitor 3, runs CRTL+6.
6 - Returns mouse pointer to centre of monitor 1 (or even better its original position if possible).

Would something like that be possible in a future version? I know it's a lot to ask, but I can't find any other software that can offer this function on MAC.

Cheers :-)

[ruittenb]

Hello @JamesClark1991 ,

Thanks for the detailed write-up. However, your request would entail:

• Implementing gesture recognition
• Defining and managing space groups
• Sending shortcut keys that do not correspond to the actual space numbering
• Moving the mouse pointer, which is user-unfriendly as it interrupts the user's workflow

There are a whole lot of snags and complications involved in this, and I'm afraid it is way beyond the scope of Spaceman.

Given that this is beyond the current scope, I'll close this discussion for now.