Home Forums Mac Software Mac Operating Systems Will "Spaces" do this?

I'm on a project where, at startup, I open eight items including seven documents (from four applications) plus one open folder window. The folder is NOT on the desktop when it is closed. Obviously, this gets tedious. I've not used Spaces, but I wonder if it can be used to open this array at startup so I can just get to work. I don't need to spread them over multiple windows. I just want a shortcut to opening them. Any suggestions?

There are probably several ways to do this—although I'm not sure that Spaces is one of them—but it seems to me that the simplest would be just to add the seven documents and one folder to your Login Items. Open System Preferences, go to Accounts, and click on the Login Items tab. Drag each of the eight items (or, more accurately, its Finder icon) into the list.

Now when you log in, the items will all open, as well as the applications required to open them.

(When you get done with the project, highlight the items and click the minus button below the list to remove them.)

Assuming you are running OS X 10.7.x (Lion) and all eight documents are opened in the same application, if they are open when you quit the application they will automatically "Resume" the next time you launch the application, They will be in the same relative position on the desktop they were in before and the particular document that had the focus will still have the focus. In other words everything will be as before.

Thanks, DK. That's very helpful. Your comment that there are probably several ways to go about it got me thinking about aliases so I could have the option of opening the project after I'd started up and checked my email or at any other time as I saw fit. So, I made four dummy files using three applications. The files were named Fake1, Fake2, Fake3 and Fake4. I put them in the folders where the project files reside. I then made an alias of each one and put the aliases together in a folder named Aliases on the desktop. I then opened the Aliases folder and clicked inside that folder and then did CMD-A and CMD-O. The Fake files opened as expected. I then closed them by using CMD-Q three times for the three applications. I found it helpful to make an icon on the dock for the Alias folder for the times when the desktop already contained open files and the dock was an easy way to get to the Alias folder to open the project documents. After all that was done, I opened the Alias folder and selected all the Aliases and deleted them. I then checked to see that the original Fake files still resided in their respective folders and they did. Then, I had the courage to do it using the actual project files. It seems to work well and it gives me freedom to choose when I want to open the project files.

I realize that my original question talked about starting up when I turn on the computer and you directly answered the question. After reading your answer, I got thinking about flexibility and decided to try what I have just described. Thanks for turning on my juices and giving me a very helpful answer to my question. Best regards.

I'm still on 10.6.8. I'm not an early adopter this time. Too many of my apps need updating. I'll wait for them to catch up and do it all at once. Thanks for telling me about it. That's a cool feature.