For the mac – macos ventura

8 min read

The next operating system for desktop and notebook Macs is called macOS Ventura. For this release, Apple focussed on making the core things you do with macOS even better, including some great new continuity features.

Stage Manager

Click on your desktop and all apps are sidelined, leaving your desktop files easily accessible.

When working on your Mac, you often have a lot of open windows. This can lead to a messy, confusing and sometimes overwhelming desktop. Stage Manager is a new way to organise and access these open windows.

Stage Manager lets you focus on the app you’re currently using without being distracted by open windows from apps you’re not. Activated from the Control Centre, it groups windows initially on a per-app basis and sends open windows as bundles to the side of the screen. Opening a new app brings it to the centre of the desktop, and the one you were previously using joins those on the side of the screen. Clicking on an already-open app that sits aside the screen also brings it to the fore, with the previously centred app moved to the side. If an app has more than one open window, the top one in the side pile is centred. You can toggle through them by clicking on the app’s pile again.

You can group apps in Stage Manager, so if (for example) you want a map of your holiday location, its page in Wikipedia and the Notes app so you can make a few jottings, you can open these apps in Stage Manager, then with one of them centred, drag the others onto the currently active window. This group of windows is then treated as one pile.

Clicking on a window pile on the side of the screen moves the top window in that pile to the centre. Click on another to replace the centred app. Click on the centred app’s own pile to cycle through its open windows.

Stage Manager is activated from Control Centre.

If you want to access a desktop file while using Stage Manager, click on the desktop and your currently centred app is moved to the side, leaving your desktop and its contents accessible. You can open a data file in an app that’s open by dragging it onto that particular app’s pile.

Stage Manager could prove a game changer for Mac users. We already have decent window management tools such as Mission Control and its multiple desktops, but the extra control offered by Stage Manager could take app management to a whole new level. We can’t wait to find out.