Drop-down visor switches desktop in full screen mode under Lion

Comment 1 by geor...@google.com on November 03, 2011 21:08

Change prefs->profiles->window space to "all spaces". It's currently set to "space 1".

Status: Done

Comment 2 by geor...@google.com on November 03, 2011 21:09

Issue #1573 (closed) has been merged into this issue.

Comment 3 by hosheng.hs... on November 03, 2011 21:20

I've tried setting it to "All Spaces" before reporting 1573. Same behavior. Besides, that does not fix the problem. The real problem is that Visor should drop down to the current space, period, whether it is in a normal Lion desktop or on top of a Lion full-screen app. That's a critical feature.

Comment 4 by geor...@google.com on November 03, 2011 21:25

(No comment has been entered for this change)

Status: Accepted

Comment 5 by geor...@google.com on November 03, 2011 21:28

I don't have a lion machine handy at the moment to test this. I haven't figured out how to bring the visor up over another app in fullscreen mode--it may not be possible. However, it shouldn't switch spaces on you if no fullscreen windows are involved. I'll look at this later today.

Comment 6 by hosheng.hs... on November 03, 2011 23:10

I was exploiting a bug in the build before 20111020.

In the previous build, I drop down visor, and swipe to the full screen app. It would roll up without my intervention. From there, anytime I press the hotkey, it would drop down on top of the full screen app. It also made it unavailable for the other spaces, but that's what I have Terminal.app/TotalTerminal for.

You can't do this in the current build. In the current build, the space switches so I can't even use Visor when I am using a window in full screen mode under Lion.

This was also the reason I filed two separate issues. One for fixing the issue related to full screen operation, and one for fixing the issue related to switching spaces. They are related but they really should not have been merged together.

Comment 7 by gnach... on November 04, 2011 06:20

I can't reproduce the behavior you describe with the previous build (20110909). It always switches back from the fullscreen app to the desktop that the hotkey window originally opened on. Were you using an older build than that? You can download old builds by going to the downloads page and selecting "all downloads" and clicking search.

I changed the spaces setting for your Visor profile to All Spaces and the visor then always opens in the current desktop.

I wonder if you have some global system setting that's causing these differences between our systems?

Comment 8 by ben.f...@puppetlabs.com on February 01, 2012 21:03

Growl popups appear over fullscreen apps. I assume that they're standard NSWindows, but perhaps not.

Comment 9 by andrew.c.stew... on March 15, 2012 18:35

Anyone have any updates on this? I wish OS X would treat full screen apps as spaces.

Comment 10 by geor...@google.com on March 26, 2012 22:17

(No comment has been entered for this change)

Labels: Milestone: Release3.0

Comment 11 by shir... on May 19, 2012 08:13

Visor aka TotalTerminal has the same issue described here.
The community worked out a "fix" which involves setting the LSUIElement Key in the Info.plist of Terminal.app.
However while this allows for drop-downs on fullscreen applications in Lion it also hides the application icon from the Dock.

Comment 12 by Denis.Bile... on July 20, 2012 09:39

2shirk87: thanks, your workaround works for me with iTerm2. The only issue is that if I press hotkey over non-fullscreen app, the menu bar of the active application remains on top of the terminal window, hiding the first row.

If anyone knows a workaround for that, please let me know.

Comment 13 by andrew.c.stew... on February 28, 2013 06:31

Why hasn't this been solved yet? It's been over a year.

Comment 14 by gnach... on March 01, 2013 02:49

Manners, andrew.c.stewart.

Comment 15 by andrew.c.stew... on March 01, 2013 02:57

Oh no, my frustration is directed at Apple. I didn't mean to sound
like I was blaming my beloved iTerm2 for an issue that nobody else
seems to be able to figure out. Adium has been afflicted by this too.

I think the duel display gripes are also somewhat related to this
issue. Apple's Lion full screen is poorly implemented.

On Feb 28, 2013, at 9:49 PM, "iterm2@googlecode.com"
iterm2@googlecode.com wrote:

Comment 16 by gnach... on March 01, 2013 03:19

Sorry for blaming you. It turns out this is actually possible for an app to do, it's just a Herculean effort (I need to use panels instead of windows for terminals, ugh).

Comment 17 by ...@photomania.net on March 16, 2014 17:20

Any updates on if/when this will be implemented? The hotkey window feature is awesome, but if you're using other apps (Code editor, Browser) in full screen, it becomes annoying.

Comment 18 by gnach... on March 24, 2014 01:26

For my reference, the following code opens a panel over a lion fullscreen window:

NSPanel *panel = [[NSPanel alloc] initWithContentRect:NSMakeRect(100, 100, 100, 100)
styleMask:NSNonactivatingPanelMask
backing:NSBackingStoreBuffered
defer:YES];
SolidColorView *view = [[SolidColorView alloc] initWithFrame:NSMakeRect(0, 0, 100, 100)
color:[NSColor greenColor]];
panel.contentView = view;
panel.collectionBehavior = NSWindowCollectionBehaviorCanJoinAllSpaces|NSWindowCollectionBehaviorFullScreenAuxiliary;
panel.level = NSFloatingWindowLevel;
[panel makeKeyAndOrderFront:nil];

Comment 19 by andrew.c.stew... on March 24, 2014 03:43

How hard would it he to get this into a binary for distribution?

Sent from my iPad

Comment 20 by gnach... on March 24, 2014 06:41

I got it kind of working in a branch called "floatingHotkeyWindow". There's one serious problem with it which is that sometimes the window just doesn't get key status and won't receive keyboard input. I can't reproduce it consistently and when it gets in that mode I can't get it out of it. There are also minor issues like the autocomplete popup window doesn't work because it's at a lower level than the hotkey window. If someone wants to hack around on this maybe they'll have more luck than I did, or at least figure out what causes the not-getting-key-status bug.

Comment 21 by ...@rich.org.ua on April 26, 2014 20:06

I've been using workaround for this for a long time.
As an addition, it hides iterm from the dock (which I also like a lot). It's not perfect and I have to do it after each upgrade, but it's really convenient, saves a lot of time and doesn't distract me with all the switching animations.
defaults write /Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/Info LSUIElement true

However I'd love this working out of box.

Comment 22 by gnach... on May 18, 2014 06:08

Issue #3005 (closed) has been merged into this issue.

Comment 23 by klay... on May 31, 2014 13:15

Thanks for the workaround to get this working, would love official support for this also

Comment 24 by unknownerro... on October 27, 2014 15:01

I think it's not not getting the keyinput, but it's not redrawing correctly. Typing something will have no visible action, but when you click on the panel, it is redrawn and all the text appears.

Comment 25 by ome... on October 31, 2014 11:14

defaults write /Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/Info LSUIElement true`defaults write /Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/Info LSUIElement true kind of does the job for me. Still buggy, but at least I don't get distracted.

Is this issue fixable without LSUIElement? LSUIElement is an acceptable workaround, but it isn't perfect as it has other downsides.

Milestone changed to Temporary Milestone

Milestone changed to Ship 3.0

@rekoil probably not. The system doesn't give apps much control over desktop switching, but changing the hotkey window to a panel might work. That is a big effort with a lot of risk, though.

Reassigned to @gnachman

Milestone changed to Future Release

mentioned in issue #2619 (closed)

mentioned in issue #3071 (closed)

mentioned in issue #3660 (closed)

I doubt this is helpful, but if iTerm2 is one of the apps in full screen split mode in El Capitan, the visor works fine without changing spaces.

defaults write ~/Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/Info LSUIElement true was helpful. I don't see what the downside is - in fact, it hides iTerm app from command-tab which is nice.

Good news! I discovered that I can set this flag at runtime. I've added an advanced preference to convert iTerm2 into a "background application". Turn on Prefs>Advanced>Hide iTerm2 from the dock and from the ⌘-Tab app switcher.. Commit 89e4b4e7.

Milestone changed to Feature Complete 3.1

This is great news! Just tried it out, and it works :D

Minor detail is that when the visor drops down from the top it still has an upper margin to account for the OS X system status bar thingie, even when in fullscreen where the bar is not present. E.g. in Sublime Text I can see the file tabs through the margin "hole" at the top of the iTerm visor.

But that's just nitpicking, I'm so happy you added this feature :) Thank you!

Another minor detail: As the system status bar is hidden in fullscreen mode, if I overshoot when I move the mouse cursor to the iTerm visor drop-down and it accidentally hits the top edge of the screen, it'll trigger OS X to reveal the status bar, which makes the iTerm visor collapse :D

~~Out of curiosity; once this setting is turned on, is there a way one might turn it off? Once enabled, I can't seem to find a way of getting back to the preferences panel.~~

Edit: Just a few minutes after typing this, I found the plist file at ~/Library/Preferences/com.googlecode.iterm2.plist and turned off the HideFromDockAndAppSwitcher setting.

@me37 You can open the Preferences of an OS X program with cmd+,. In this case you have to close (cmd+w) all the iTerm windows as well because they show up on top.

mentioned in issue #4359 (closed)

I checked the prefs, but I must be missing the 'Advanced' tab? Where can I access this?

@JMitnik It's in the beta version only.

mentioned in issue #4553 (closed)

mentioned in issue #1970 (closed)

The latest built is perfect. I have been looking forward to this feature since I have been using iTerm. Thank you so much!

Not sure if a bug but when overlayed ontop of a full-screened app. There is padding on the top as shown in the screenshot.

@patdohere How did you open an iTerm2 window overtop another app's full screen window? Is that a hotkey window? Are you using an OS 10.12 beta perhaps?

It looks like a hotkey window, but since you asked, if you have opened the hotkey window over another app, and it's in focus, if you then press Cmd-N, the new iTerm2 window will launch over the other apps fullscreen window. It's kind of irritating actually, since that's very rarely the intended outcome.

@gnachman The opened window is a HotKey window. I am running El Capitan (10.11.5), so I found out that if I check "Automatically Hide and Show Menu Bar" in System Preferences -> General the padding disappears. In screenshot below.

How the heck are you guys getting the hotkey window to open over another fullscreen app? That's impossible.

Can you share screenshots of System Prefs > Mission Control and attach your ~/Library/Preferences/com.googlecode.iterm2.plist file please?

@patdohere, your solution is correct, but I would suggest having the terminal pop "up" rather than down. In my opinion, the terminal at the bottom of the screen is much more functional and allows you to avoid the above.