Common Desktop Environment: Style Guide and Certification Checklist

Workspace Management Guidelines

Desktop applications appear in one of several work areas called workspaces. A user may have several workspaces active on the desktop. The application should behave in certains ways in relation to those workspaces.

Recommended	av:	When your application creates a new window, it should come up in the user's current workspace and only occupy that single workspace.
Recommended	aw:	Application windows that are related to a particular task should move together between workspaces.

For example, a spreadsheet application may have one or more secondary windows open that allow the user to change the properties of data cells in the main window. If the user moves the main window to a different workspace, the properties windows should move with it.

On the other hand, a word processor may have several windows open, where each is used to edit a different document. In this case, when a user moves one of the windows to a different workspace, the other windows may remain where they are.