Dual Monitor subtleties under Mac Mavericks

[KnightPhoto]

I use dual monitors on my iMac 27" and recently upgraded to Mac Mavericks OS.  It seems to me that my dual monitor functionality is now different - probably more of a Mavericks thing than a Photo Mechanic shortcoming.

First of all let me say I love PM and have been using it for ~4 years now - I would not want to use any other ingest, evaluate, cull, file renaming, and metadata management tool.  In particular the sharp rendering of the full size previews lets me evaluate which of multiple similar shots is actually the sharpest.  The blazing speed and wealth of features are great and I'm sure I'm only tapping 1/10 of the product.  Anyhow here is my weird symptom, on my left/cheap/secondary monitor I keep the thumbnails view, and when I double-click on a thumbnail the full size preview pops up on my right/large/27" iMac screen.

However it used to be that I could "see" the thumbnail screen on my left monitor at all times, I could mouse over to the left screen and scroll, change filters etc.  Mouse back to the right screen seamlessly etc.  Now it seems like my Apple mail is got some kind of "always on top functionality", so depending on what I do, Apple mail "stays on top" on my left screen and I can't get back to the PM thumbnail view on my left screen unless I close PM on my right monitor which then restores the PM thumbnail view on my left screen.

Any Mavericks experts out there and experienced this?

Thanks in advance
Steve Knight
KnightPhoto

[Kirk Baker]

Steve,

What is this "depending on what I do"?  What exactly is it that you do just prior to having the problem?

-Kirk

[KnightPhoto]

What exactly I do is a Cmd-Tab swapping to another open App.  If I then command-Tab back to Photo Mechanic, my current Photo Mechanic window is "hidden".  I.e. focus is returned to PM but I can't see the PM screen that focus returned to.

I then have to Cmd-tab back to the App that is "covering up PM", close that App, and THEN I can see the PM screen.

In demonstrating the above to myself, I just realized that I can invoke this behaviour on either my left or my right monitor.

Thanks you for your question,

[Kirk Baker]

Steve,

What exactly I do is a Cmd-Tab swapping to another open App.  If I then command-Tab back to Photo Mechanic, my current Photo Mechanic window is "hidden".  I.e. focus is returned to PM but I can't see the PM screen that focus returned to.

I then have to Cmd-tab back to the App that is "covering up PM", close that App, and THEN I can see the PM screen.

In demonstrating the above to myself, I just realized that I can invoke this behaviour on either my left or my right monitor.

Is the PM window invisible after this or just covered up?

Are you using "Spaces"?

-Kirk

[KnightPhoto]

I'm not knowingly using Spaces.  I upgraded about a month ago to Mavericks and someone moved the cheese and it feels like Mavericks because I believe PM is NOT my only App behaving this way (rather than PhotoMechanic being the issue).

After a command-tab command-tab sequence (going to another App and then returning to PM) I can "only see the thumbnail screen" on my left secondary screen and can no longer see the previously full size image I had up on my high-quality (right) iMac monitor.  I found a second workaround, if I then mouse over to a thumbnail and double click it, it then restores my full-size view on my main (right) monitor.  I found a third workaround which answers your question - I can also dive the mouse over the bottom right corner of my main-right monitor and Mavericks then shows me a reduced-size view of all my open Apps.  I can clearly see that the PM full-size display IS STILL OPEN, it is not closed!  If I click on that reduced sized PM window Mavericks shows me, it restores it on my high quality right monitor at full size again.

Also here's another weird behaviour:
If I start PM using the PM icon I have in my task bar on my right monitor, the thumbnail screen opens on my left (lower quality) monitor, just like I want it to.  However when I double-click a thumbnail, it starts the full size view on the left lower quality monitor and covers the view of the thumbnails.  The desired action is it would "remember" I always want the full size view to always start on the right monitor.  Another second issue that is weird - if I grab the full size window on the left monitor and attempt to drag it to my right monitor it moves partially but hits some kind of fence/roadblock - I can move it part way over to my right monitor but it runs into some obstacle that prevents me from moving the full size window all the way over to my big iMac monitor on the right.  There is a workaround.  I close PM completely.  THEN instead of starting PM from the task bar on my right monitor, I start it from the taskbar on my left monitor.  The thumbnails start on the left monitor and the double-click brings up the full-sized image review covering the thumbnails (just like the other scenario).  HOWEVER when I now grab the full-sized image review I AM ABLE to move it to my right monitor where I want it (it doesn't hit the unseen obstacle).  I believe having a second task bar available on my second monitor is a new feature of Mavericks.  IIRC prior to that I only had a single task bar available, it was exclusively available on my main (right) primary monitor.  Now I have two task bars to choose from, but as mentioned a behaviour difference depending on which task bar I start PM with.

Sorry for all the questions ;-)

[Kirk Baker]

That's some odd behavior.  PM does remember the positions of all of its windows and does its best to restore their positions when reopened.  I have multiple monitors on my system (10.9) and PM behaves exactly as it should.

Mavericks is a relatively new OS and there could still be some bugs in it.  I can tell you that PM does nothing to limit the position of your windows when dragging (the application framework handles the moving/dragging of windows, not PM itself.)

How are your monitors arranged in the Displays system control panel?  Is there something odd about the layout?

-Kirk

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

As far as using Command-Tab to switch between apps and not having them come to the front, this has been a strange OS X issue since well before Mavericks.  In all my research (intermittently going back years), I have not been able to find any definitive answer what is causing it to happen.  Apparently if you hold down Option before release Command-tab, this guarantees the window will come to the front, but I have not yet been able to master the fingerwork to make that happen.

Here are some of many related threads on the issue and related issues:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3458920?start=15&tstart=0
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/29705/cmdtab-switches-to-the-correct-space-but-doesnt-bring-app-up-to-front

Some think it has to do with spaces, some don't. Some say it has to do with fullscreen apps, but some disagree. You will see many suggested remedies that work for some but not all.  It is an Apple mystery!

If anyone discovers the ultimate solution, I will buy them an expensive imported beer.

-Mick