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.

How to use the dock ?

Apple dock likes the taskbar which you used in Windows. The dock is your application shortcuts place, shows which you are running applications and for each open application or document, where the task bar stores minimized windows. Also it contains trash can and shortcuts to most commonly used applications, much like Windows’ quick launch icons.

| Using the dock |

Even though you can move your application's icons to dock to create a shortcut to run that application. You can understand the running applications by a dot left or right side of the icon (it depends on the position of your dock). You can change the applications by pressing to the icon which application you want to switch.

| Positioning and showing and hiding the dock |

You can customize the dock position how you wish to.

If you want more space on your desktop or on your applications, you can hide your dock.To hide or to customize the Dock’s position, control-click (hold down the control key while clicking if you didn't set up right click) the Dock’s vertical line. This displays the menu from which you may select different Dock settings, including position and show/hide.