Full-screen window behavior

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

Hi,

I’ve noticed that in full-screen mode (Apple full-screen, that is), something weird happens. Let’s say I have two Projects open, each in their own full-screen, OS X “Space,” the way Apple names things. Now, let’s say I’m in Project A, and I open a QuickReference panel. Now I slide over to Project B . . . and there’s the QuickReference panel I just opened from the other Project, laying atop Project B. Same thing happens with Project Notes, and vice versa, too. If I open Project B’s Notes, then slide over the Project A, there they are, floating above its Space. What I would like to see is some type of fix for this; that is, when I open Notes or a QuickRef in Project A’s Space, I would like for it to stay there, floating where it belongs, and not somewhere else. Is there perhaps a way for Scrivener to keep track of which windows a particular Project has open, and “aware” of which full-screen space these child windows belong to? (Or maybe different kinds of windows could be used in full-screen than are used in windowed mode?) This is of course not anything close to a deal-breaker, but it is kind of annoying to have to fix it each time I switch between full-screen Projects.

Just wondering if you knew about this,
Andy H.

2

Hi Andy,

Windows in OS X have to be assigned a particular “collection behaviour”, which tells OS X how they should behave when it comes to different spaces. The windows you mention are set to use the “move to active space” behaviour. They are like this for a reason: if they don’t use this setting, then you couldn’t move them to other spaces; clicking on them would zoom you back to their original space. More importantly, they would get hidden underneath the full screen window entirely. This is because, when you enter full screen, the window gets put into a different space. So, if the QuickRef panels etc aren’t set to move to the active space, they won’t appear over even the correct project’s space, but will be left behind in the non-full screen space - and there is no easy way of getting them into the full screen space (if there is any way at all).

This is just one of several issues with OS X’s full screen implementation, unfortunately. But I figure the current behaviour is better than not being able to bring up QuickRef panels or project notes at all while you are in full screen.

All the best,
Keith