Multiple displays move independently

In all the years I’ve used various spaces applications, such as natively on Snow Leopard, hyperspaces and totalspaces, multiple displays are considered a single “space”, and all move in sync. However, I was just recently forced to upgrade to Mavericks from Lion (Bypassed Mountain Lion completely), and had to upgrade to TotalSpaces2. Now my spaces are considered independent, and move independently. When I connect my macbook to an external display (DisplayLink USB monitor, Apple Display Monitor, or Non Apple Display through a DisplayPort adapter), they all require that I open TotalSpaces2 preferences, and add the requisite spaces for that display. Upon disconnecting from that display, the spaces originally created are then attached to my macbook display. This is very inconvenient, as I don’t have the ability to identify a display through a shortcut key. I’m accustomed to having the displays move in sync.

However, as I was writing this bug report, it dawned on me to do a search external to the TotalSpaces forum, and see if there is a reason for this in the WindowServer on Mavericks. If you reference this image below, and uncheck the same box in your system preferences, it’ll fix the issue. The reason for this is that the displays are considered separate spaces by default: http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim2/2013/10/31/MavericksDisplaySpaces.png

Of course, it requires a log out, but once you do, the spaces now move in sync with each other. One thing to take note of however, is that you lose the apple menu across all the displays, which is the main feature that Mavericks put in place anyway for the new WindowServer. Hopefully others that want the same functionality as before find this useful.

Yes, useful, thanks for the post. I agree that combining the availability of the dock & menu on each display with the ability to tie them together in the old way is something that apple could add to improve usability.