Is there a way to create virtual desktops in Mac OS X?

Virtal desktops are a convenient way of organizing your program windows. You can “switch” desktops and choose which one to open a program inside, allowing you to group your windows by application type or anything you want. For example, make one desktop your browsing desktop, another your terminal desktop, another for email, etc. Switching desktops is as easy as clicking on a small window (called a “pager”) or pressing a keyboard shortcut. If you’ve ever used a Linux desktop manager like GNOME or KDE, it will look familiar to you.

One popular free desktop manager is called (appropriately enough) Desktop Manager. Its home page is http://desktopmanager.berlios.de/. It features convenient shortcuts for moving windows from one desktop to another, and special switching effects like a rotating cube. It’s not only practical but also pretty! I recommend adding the program to your dock window and setting it to open at startup, so it feels more like part of Mac OS itself.

VirtueDesktops (http://virtuedesktops.info/) is another free desktop manager with similar features.