I am constantly having edit screens disappear behind the main screen. Sometimes that can be recovered using Alt TAB, other times I have to resize the main screen to be able to click on the edit screen to bring it to the front and on some occasion I need to use the task manager to close RM as the edit screen is inaccessible and no there is no response from RM. The most frustrating is when an edit screens are hidden that cannot be reached and a message pops up saying that only a max of 3 edit screen are allowed,
Is it possible to force all edit screens to remain in front of the main screen.
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This can be very frustrating. I run into it primarily when Iâm switching from RM8 to another app and back. I seldom even have multiple Edit Person screens open. It happens with only one Edit Person screen open.
In the case of the Edit Person screen, there is a thin gray line at the bottom of the main screen that has a list of all your Edit Person screens. You can click on them to bring the Edit Person screens back to the front. The âlistâ of Edit Person screens acts sort of like tabs, but it doesnât look visually like tabs. I think the thin grey line would be easier to work with if it were at the top of the screen instead of at the bottom and if it looked more like tabs.
But I actually have this problem come up much more often with screens other than the Edit Person screen. The Edit Person screen at least has the virtue of being non-modal and of populating the thin gray line at the bottom of the main screen. But the same problem can happen with RM8âs modal screens, of which there are still many. For example, if from Publish I make a report, save the report, and view it in Microsoft Word, itâs often the case that when I close out Word that my RM8 window is locked up. What has happened is that the modal report screen has popped under the main screen. Usually Alt-Tab serves to recover from these situations, but not always.
Itâs hard to know how this could best be fixed. Itâs not clear to me that there is anything the developers could do to prevent the pop under screens from happening that would work reliably on both a PC and a Mac. There are presently 11 main left tabs. I have wondered if these sorts of things should run in a new and 12th tab to prevent the pop unders. But then the modal or non-modal windows wouldnât be able to run on a separate monitor. I hope there can be a solution, but Iâm not sure what it such a solution would look like.
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On mac with 2 edit person windows open there is a bottom bar across the tree view window showing each edit window by name. One click on a name gets you back to the tree main window and a 2nd click shows the edit window. I had not noticed this bar before Jerryâs comment and it would be useful on Windows. On mac you can just swipe down and see all open windows in the current application (RM8).
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Could you post a screenshot from a Mac? As a Windows user, I would be curious what it looks like.
The pop under situations are sometimes difficult to deal with on Windows. There doesnât seem to be a Windows way to âsee all the windowsâ in the same sense I think you are describing for a Mac. The worst situation is when a modal window pops under. The Edit Person window is at least non-modal and at least RM8 itself has its own bottom bar to get you back to the Edit Person windows that have popped under. Are you saying that the Mac has a way to get to these popped under windows that doesnât involve RM8?
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See attached screenshots. RM8 with 2 edit persons open. One swipe down on mac trackpad shows all open windows for the current program. One swipe up shows all open programs with their open windows. One of the many ways it is so easy to hop around.
Window management is also simple with an inexpensive app Magnet. FullâŚ1/3 L RâŚ2/3 L R CenterâŚ1/2 topâŚbottomâŚleftâŚright.
I find your comments very informative and helpful.
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Wow! Iâm wondering if Windows can do the same thing and I just donât know how to do it.
Not likely! Certainly not in Windows 7 which was the last version I had to work with.
These features are called mission control and app expose if you wanted to try a Google search for Windows equivalents. Other swipe gestures show the desktop or all the apps on your computer ready to launch (Launchpad). Macs also have a feature called Spaces which allows you to have up to 16 different desktops with diferent apps active and filp among them with swipes or command shortcuts.
You can so something similar. For example, three finger swipe, left and right, behaves like Alt-Tab.
Three finger swipe up shows all the open windows etc. See the various gestures here: https://www.howtogeek.com/370238/how-to-use-touchpad-gestures-for-windows-10/
You can also use snap, Windows Logo + a directional arrow or right click on the taskbar to cascade.
My usual method of bringing the window I was working on back to the front is to click on the RM8 icon in the Windows task bar.
On Windows I have found that the âbuttonsâ along the bottom of the screen displaying open edit screens most useful option so far but is does not work for all screens/windows. Some still require resizing and moving the main window to access hidden windows on which you can click to make active.
Using the Windows âsnapâ feature I find largely useless as it is like a dog chasing its tail when using multiple monitors with multiple programs opens, plus it frustratingly resizes windows in the process. Lastly, the Launch Pad function on Mac is the equivalent of using Alt TAB on Windows, although a little more functional.
The crux of all this is that basic UI design requires secondary windows or dialogs to always open and remain in front of their parent window, something which is not happening with RM8. RM7 played by the rules.
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I very much agree with this opinion with one very minor exception. Namely, RM7 did not play with the rules 100% of the time. It played by the rules a much higher percentage of the time than RM8, but RM7 still had its occasional pop under window.
Rooty, thanks for pointing this and other suggestions out for Mac users. I hadnât noticed it before. The swiping is a good suggestion too.
This happens with other applications as well on Windows. I solve the problem by using the âShow Desktopâ button on the bottom right of the window. After getting to a basic desktop with no windows open, I then click on the application (RM8 in this case) icon at the bottom and the edit (or other) window pops over instead of under.
The mac is a little different in window priorities. Popups usually appear on top initially but we move around between applications and windows freely and can always see what is open and hop there. RM7 was difficult about allowing this and tended to force you to close a popup first.
I often find a RM window Iâm working on jumping to the back of other RM windows. I think there is some kind of bug that is causing RM to pick up key stokes or mouse movements even when RM is not in focus.
Sounds weird and I donât know how window message queues could get mixed up, but thatâs what it looks like to me.
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I have noticed that too. Especially on source and citation windows when I move to another program, e.g.Web. Browser.
I have the same problem.
Question: Does RootsMagic Support read or participate in the community discussions, or have they left this venue strictly for users to help each other? I guess what Iâm really wondering is, will RootsMagic take any action to correct problems that are mentioned here? I have previously mentioned this problem in support tickets, but no action has been taken to fix it yet.
No. They only participate in the Facebook group.
I have never seen then participate in this group, but that doesnât mean they donât read this group. I donât know for sure if they read this group or not, but I bet they do. In particular, the feature-request tag couldnât work unless they read this group.