What is Spaces and how to use it ?

Mac OS X Leopard comes with "spaces", which you can group your desktops and switching between desktops. You can group any application to a different space. It is very useful, i strongly suggest this useful application.

| Setting up the spaces |

Click the Spaces icon in the Dock (You can also choose System Preferences from the Apple menu and click the Spaces icon there), then it ask you "Spaces is not set up. Would you like to set it up?", click Set Up Spaces. Spaces preferences opens, after that check the "Enable Spaces" checkbox. If you want see Spaces in the menu bar, check "Show Spaces in menu bar".

You can add up to 4 rows and 4 columns (16 Spaces) for your Spaces by clicking the "+" buttons.

| Adding applications to specific Space |

Click the "+" button there to add an application. In this case, we'll select an application for this Space. Highlight the application and click Add. With this setup, whenever that application opens, it automatically opens in this Space.

| Shortcut keys |

You can change the shortcuts used to switch between Spaces by changing the pull-down menus at the bottom of the Spaces preferences window. The menus are "To activate Spaces", "To switch between Spaces", and "To switch directly to a Space".

You can set any key combination to move to the next space in your specified order, from Space 1 to Space 2, from 2 to 3, and so on. You can also disable any shortcut if you want to by choosing "-" from the menu(s).

I suggest that to use your mouse's middle button to show the "Space Windows" and for direct switching assign "alt" button and "arrows"

But in default press F8 to show "Space Windows", for direct switching press Control-1 to jump to your first space, Control-2 to jump to your second, and so on (unless you reassigned these shortcut keys, in which case use your assigned key combination).

If you’ve enabled "Show Spaces in menu bar” in Spaces preferences, you also can click the Spaces icon in the upper-right of the menu bar, and select any numbered space from the menu.