Is it possible to save and load/restore a layout grid?

(Even though the title is almost the same as in Is it possible to save predefined layouts? I believe I’m asking a different question. I also couldn’t find an existing topic for this but will be happy if pointed to one if one exists.)

I’m using TotalSpaces2 v2.5.4. I normally use both the laptop and one external screen, having a 3x2 grid (or 6 desktops) on each.

Lately I’ve been running more and more to the situation where I connect my MBP to an external monitor to see that my grid layouts are “corrupted” so that the external monitor has only one desktop and the laptop screen has the rest. This didn’t seem to happen much earlier but then again, I’m switching more to different kinds of monitors nowadays. This also doesn’t happen every time and unfortunately I haven’t found a way to always reproduce the problem. I believe it has something to do with when it is that I plug in the DP cable, i.e. before or after turning the monitor on.

Of course it would be nice if the “corruption” didn’t happen at all, but I could also live with a workaround of restoring my grid layout back to the way they were. I wouldn’t expect all program windows to jump to their respective spaces (and this is why I believe I’m asking a different question as the one I linked to in the beginning) – only to have my 3x2 grid restored on each screen, preferably with their titles.

Is this possible now? If not, would you consider it as a new feature?

This is a problem we’ve seen before in various guises. The background is the TotalSpaces2 is built using Mission Control spaces, and for some reason macOS does not correctly always remember which monitor the spaces go on. I haven’t been able to determine exactly why / when this happens.

Although I don’t have a direct solution, I made a plugin for TotalSpaces2 that can record and restore space layouts.

You can find it here: https://downloads.binaryage.com/DisplaySpacesManager-1.2.3.zip

You can record a particular layout, and restore that layout after you reboot your Mac. Please try it and let me know any problems.

Note: You need a licensed copy of TotalSpaces2 for this plugin to work.

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Thank you for the plugin, it works great! I have one question, though… The recorded layout seems to save info about the display as well, so if I use several monitors, I should probably record a layout separately for each make/model? Is this behavior intended?

I reckon it is, as there’s an error message “Display not found, this config is for different displays”. I totally understand that as people may want to have different layouts on different monitors. I’d prefer being able to load the same grid on whatever external monitor I’m using but I also understand the need for this existing functionality, and this is a very minor issue for me. :slight_smile:

Yes, it’s intended to be like that, but I guess it could be changed.

It’s open source by the way, if you are interested in making changes: https://github.com/binaryage/totalspaces2-display-manager

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