Author Topic: Opening Contact Sheet Tabs in Background  (Read 2491 times)

Offline Max Lemesh

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Opening Contact Sheet Tabs in Background
« on: August 31, 2023, 06:11:36 AM »
There is a checkbox in Ingest window in PM that makes contact sheets open in background during the ingest, which is a very useful thing, because it allows me to work on something else while new ingested tabs are being opened.

I wish there was a switch that made all of the new tabs open in background, unless there are no tabs open at all.

Why this is useful?
1. As mentioned above it will allow to continue working with current tab without interruptions due to other apps opening tabs
2. Ligtroom is the least of two evils that does this, because Lightroom triggers "open with app" after it finishes the export, which happens once per export.
3. Capture One is the main offender, because it triggers "open with..." after each photo, making it impossible to work in PM because each new photo steals PM focus.

I also wrote to C1 Support to add switch that triggers Open With similar to Lightroom.

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: Opening Contact Sheet Tabs in Background
« Reply #1 on: August 31, 2023, 10:31:58 AM »
Max,

There is a checkbox in Ingest window in PM that makes contact sheets open in background during the ingest, which is a very useful thing, because it allows me to work on something else while new ingested tabs are being opened.

I wish there was a switch that made all of the new tabs open in background, unless there are no tabs open at all.

Why this is useful?
1. As mentioned above it will allow to continue working with current tab without interruptions due to other apps opening tabs
2. Ligtroom is the least of two evils that does this, because Lightroom triggers "open with app" after it finishes the export, which happens once per export.
3. Capture One is the main offender, because it triggers "open with..." after each photo, making it impossible to work in PM because each new photo steals PM focus.

I also wrote to C1 Support to add switch that triggers Open With similar to Lightroom.

The tabs should be opening in the background and not taking focus away from the current tab in Photo Mechanic.

Are you talking about when during Ingest with Photo Mechanic not being the foreground app (you're working in another app), Photo Mechanic comes forward when a new tab opens?

-Kirk

Offline Max Lemesh

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Re: Opening Contact Sheet Tabs in Background
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2023, 04:58:32 AM »
During the ingest it works as intended, but I wish it worked the same way when freshly exported photo is opened in PM every time Capture One is done exporting it - in the background tab.
Currently PM switches view to the tab with C1 exported images every time new photo is exported and C1 sends it to PM.

It is mainly C1 problem, how it handles the "Open with" feature. But if PM could have an option to lock focus on current tab user is working on an open everything else in background, that would help a lot.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2023, 03:03:32 PM by Max Lemesh »

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: Opening Contact Sheet Tabs in Background
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2023, 02:26:22 PM »
Max,

So C1 is telling PM to open a file or a folder (as if it were an editor for the file) and PM is coming forward and showing you the file/folder it was asked to open?  That's standard behavior.  So you want PM to stay entirely in the background?

Or do you want PM to come forward but open the new folder in the background like Ingest offers?

-Kirk

Offline Max Lemesh

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Re: Opening Contact Sheet Tabs in Background
« Reply #4 on: September 06, 2023, 10:41:21 AM »
Second option.

If I'm already in PM and working on something else I would love any new files or tabs open in the background, like it works with the ingest window.
Or alternatively, if PM is launched with "Open With" it stays on the first tab that was opened, this way it would be possible to review images as they come up, but without them stealing focus.

All of this works pretty well with Ingest window checkbox — Open Contact Sheets in background.
If it was some sort of global behaviour switch that focused on open tab (or first open tab) that would probably accomplish the goal