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Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 2:27 pm
by isecore
Hi all, the other day I got fed up with Ubuntu/Unity after it bugged out for the umpteenth time. So it was time for a reformat and reinstall, and this time Ubuntu didn't make the cut. Five years and finally mr Shuttleworth managed to lose my support. So I went for Mint/Cinnamon after having played with it in a VM. I like Cinnamon, it brings back good memories of Gnome 2.x and I felt right at home almost immediately.

However, one thing annoys me. I like having four workspaces for distributing my work, and Cinnamon is real easy to create/delete workspaces. Byt why do they all have to be horizontal to each other? I'd like to have them 2 x 2 stacked on each other, not 1 x 4 as it is now.

Any help would be appreciated!

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 9:42 pm
by sprintcowboy
Open cinnamon settings
click workspaces
mark Display Expo view as a grid
You should have your 2 x 2 stacked as long as you have 4 workspaces.

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 5:18 am
by isecore
Thanks a bunch! That did the trick, and it was so obvious really.

Anyways, thanks again. Much appreciated! :)

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2012 8:14 pm
by spunionring
I also have this problem. However I am not satisfied by the "expo grid" at all. The whole benefit to having a grid layout is that you can have up to 4 workspaces adjacent to each workspace. And you can maneuver between rows and columns easily with shortcuts such as ctrl-alt-down and up in addition the left and right.

Is this possible in Cinnamon?

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2012 8:33 pm
by abnvolk
Although the Expo mode is desplayed as a grid, the workspaces are actually horizontal. Ctrl-Alt-Up and Down are shortcuts to the Scale and Expo mode.

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2012 9:56 pm
by spunionring
abnvolk wrote:Although the Expo mode is desplayed as a grid, the workspaces are actually horizontal. Ctrl-Alt-Up and Down are shortcuts to the Scale and Expo mode.
right, which is why it sucks

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 2:51 am
by abnvolk
IMO it's tolerable if you have a small number of workspaces. I only have 2, and I don't think normal users would use more than 4 workspaces...

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 3:37 am
by bimsebasse
You can arrow navigate left, right, up and down in the grid? What more do you need?

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 6:27 pm
by spunionring
bimsebasse wrote:You can arrow navigate left, right, up and down in the grid? What more do you need?
How would you navigate up and down on the grid?

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:27 pm
by abnvolk
In expo you can use the keyboard to navigate, but there are no direct shortcuts for it.

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 12:01 am
by spunionring
so is this a lacking in cinnamon? or mint in general?

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 3:08 am
by bimsebasse
spunionring wrote:
bimsebasse wrote:You can arrow navigate left, right, up and down in the grid? What more do you need?
How would you navigate up and down on the grid?
Arrow up and down. Unless I'm misunderstanding you :|

Ah, now I think I know what you mean, you want to navigate easily to all neighboring workspaces from the desktop with keyboard commands. No, that's not possible in Cinnamon,, from the desktop you can only navigate laterally, but Cinnamon's workspace handling is focused on the expo overview. Try to get used to ramming your mouse into the corner (or pressing Alt+F1) and selecting your workspace in expo.

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 8:53 pm
by spunionring
even within the expo view, using the up and down arrows still only moves left and right through the workspaces.

this is very inefficient use of workspaces, im gonna have to either try something other than cinnamon, or straight up go back to ubuntu. sad tho cuz mint seems pretty nice in alot of ways, just not really seeing anything extra it can offer, while losing functionality vs the alternative at the same time

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 11:16 pm
by abnvolk
What are you talking about? In Expo I can navigate up and down using these keys. The workspaces are not in a row. :?:
Ok, I give up. Maybe Unity, KDE, Xfce and MATE can help you. At least, I feel Cinnamon to be better and more customizable than GNOME 3. GNOME 3 only allows workspaces to be vertical, you know :) Being a Windows user I'm not used to working with workspaces, so that doesn't matter anyway.

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 11:53 pm
by spunionring
in expo the workspaces appear in a grid fine, but up and down still move the highlighted workspace left and right.

i dont find that there is barely any customizability here. maybe i was just used to the fanciness that is Compiz with gnome, i dunno.

i appreciate the attempts to help me btw. getting used to a new OS can be tricky! :)

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 3:50 am
by bimsebasse
spunionring, there is something wrong with your setup, then, because I can arrow up, down, left, right to workspaces within expo. Maybe you have a very old version of Cinnamon?

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 9:54 am
by spunionring
Currently using Cinnamon 1.6.7

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 4:37 am
by bimsebasse
Then your install is messed up somehow, because it has 4-direction arrow key support in expo.

Re: Rearrange workspaces in Cinnamon?

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 10:41 pm
by spunionring
UPDATE: I switched to Mate instead of Cinnamon now. It supports Compiz, so I can have my 5x5 grid of workspaces and they switch much more smoothly too!