Rebinding Spaces in Leopard.

One final gripe is the key bindings for Spaces. The only key bindings for switching desktops is Control + arrow keys ... Ideally, I'd love to be able to configure "switch desktop" up/down/left/right; individually and to any modifiers + key I want.

This was the first problem I hit with Spaces. The key combinations Apple allow can't be pressed with only one hand and that's a major flaw. Dave wants Control + Option + e/d/s/f but I wanted an even simpler combination of Alt + Space to swap over (I only use two virtual desktops so the up-down-left-right navigation is overkill).

The solution I use is to have FastScripts and Applescript rebind the shortcuts to something more agreeable.

FastScripts really deserves a full post to explain how useful it is but in a single sentence: attach any script/program/whatever to any keyboard shortcut.

First off, I set the Spaces shortcuts to the unwieldy combination of Control + Alt + Command + arrow and F15 to swap over and get the overview, respectively. This keeps the "real" shortcuts out of my way in other applications.

Next, I save a couple of Applescript one-liners to ~/Library/Scripts/Spaces where FastScripts can bind them to my shortcuts of Alt + Space and Alt + Command + Space.

//Swap.scpt 
//spoof a keypress of Control + Alt + Command + arrow
tell application "System Events" to keystroke \
(keystroke (ASCII character 29) using \
{option down, shift down, command down})

//Activate.scpt
//'activate' Spaces
tell application id "com.apple.spaceslauncher" to launch

All joined up, it works like this.

• I press Alt + Space
• FastScripts intercepts and launches the linked script.
• The script sends Control + Alt + Command + arrow back to OS X.
• Spaces swaps desktop.

No problem, and it's a simple matter to alter the FastScript trigger to use any shortcut you like.