Glad it resolved it. I'm not sure who likes using stage manager. For the last 5+ years, each year Apple seems to be trying to merge iOS and macOS to be the same thing, say over 10-15 year period. Stage manager seems to mirror more of the iPad experience. Not sure who would want to use that, unless you are spending your whole day working on a 13" MacBook monitor and you jump around a lot between apps, but I'd probably error on the side of using multiple desktops vs stage manager in that case. but maybe not. I guess I'll never know,
