Can hotkey window be used with Lion+ fullscreen apps?

[Dan Davison]

I'd like to be able to use the hotkey window (visor) with fullscreen
app windows in Mountain Lion. However:

1. I make an app (chrome) fullscreen. It seems to move itself to a new
space (not iterm2's fault, but I believe Apple doesn't give me any
control over this right?)
2. I hit the iterm2 hotkey: it transports me back to the original
space (with annoying animation -- not iterm2's fault)
3. I hit the hotkey a second time to take me out of iterm2 and back to
my app. I'm hoping to end up back in the fullscreen app in space 2 but
I end up in space 1 with the non-fullscreen apps.

I tried changing some iterm2 settings: checking/unchecking "Closing
hotkey window restores focus to last window, but may switch spaces"
and, in the profile which my hotkey window uses, changing the
"Settings for new windows -> Space / Screen" settings, but I haven't
managed to get the desired behavior described above.

I don't really do anything without switching to iterm2 a few seconds /
minutes later, so at the moment this means I am not using fullscreen
in mountain lion, although I would like to.

Thanks

Dan

Relevant threads:

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/iterm2-discuss/QSKmK0CHdcY/discussion
Visor on Lion broken on iTerm2 1.0.0.20111020

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/iterm2-discuss/NUrEOQoFs6s/discussion
when using Spaces, visor should always appear in current window
(old; Snow Leopard)

[George Nachman]

Under Lion, a bug in their framework prevents me from opening a new window over a fullscreen window. I'm trying to get back to where I could do that, but I don't remember the trick that worked before (but wasn't usable due to the bug). My reference app used to be Quicksilver but unfortunately it has rotted away and I can't even build it now. Does anyone know of any open source app that can open a window over a fullscreen window?

[Aaron Meurer]

Quicksilver is not dead. It is alive and well at
https://github.com/quicksilver/quicksilver. But I checked and it does
not open over a fullscreen app in Mountain Lion.

Aaron Meurer

[George Nachman]

Oh, no? I thought it used to. Anyway, keep your eyes out for an open source app that can do this. I know it's possible, but the trick is not obvious.

[Marko Milivojevic]

I just tried it and yes it does - if you are referring to a shortcut-key overlay window used for search?

-Marko.

[Aaron Meurer]

Is that in Mountain Lion? For me, Quicksilver seems to open in the
space that the window was originally in.

Aaron Meurer

[Aaron Meurer]

It seems that Alfred can do it. I know that doesn't help because
Alfred is closed source, but it proves that it is indeed possible.

Aaron Meurer

[Daniel Serodio]

It's closed source but the author seems like a nice guy, maybe he'll tell you how he's done it.

[Marko Milivojevic]

On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Aaron Meurer <asme...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is that in Mountain Lion?  For me, Quicksilver seems to open in the
space that the window was originally in.

It is Mountain Lion. I'm using QS ß70 (3935).

-Marko.

 

[Stephen C. Gilardi]

[ not sure why this didn't show up the first time I sent it ]

I'm using Quicksilver ß70 (3935) with Mountain Lion (10.8.2). Quicksilver's main UI window and even its preferences window work for me from within a full screen app. I just confirmed it is working properly for me in Google Chrome and iTerm as specific test cases.

One thing that doesn't work properly is that Quicksilver's main UI window can come up in Mission Control, but it doesn't receive any keystrokes so it's not useful there.

--Steve

[Marko Milivojevic]

Same version, same experience.

I guess George can use QS source after all :-)

-Marko.

[Dan Davison]

Hi Marko,

It looks like chrome is not fullscreen in your screen shot? I tried
quicksilver beta70 on mountain lion and it does not open in front of a
fullscreen chrome window -- it opens in the other space.

alfred and divvy can do it, but neither is open source

adium is open source, and it can't do it :(


2012/10/17 Marko Milivojevic <mar...@gmail.com>:

[Marko Milivojevic]

It was fullscreen - see the absence of the menu bar :-)

-Marko.

[Marko Milivojevic]

Not sure if it matters, but do you have Dashboard configured to show up as an overlay or a separate space? I have it set to overlay. I have a suspicion this might have something to do with this.

-Marko.

[George Nachman]

Ok, I was able to make the hotkey window pop up over Lion fullscreen windows. It's a pretty big change to how hotkey windows work, though, and I had to break a lot of things to make it happen. But it is possible.

For future reference and for anyone googling this question:

To make a window appear over a lion fullscreen window, it needs to be an NSPanel with the NSNonactivatingPanelMask style mask and have collection behavior NSWindowCollectionBehaviorCanJoinAllSpaces|NSWindowCollectionBehaviorFullScreenAuxiliary. It has to have a level set (e.g., NSPopUpMenuWindowLevel). You must not call [NSApp activateIgnoringOtherApps:] because that switches desktops. It is OK to call [NSWindow makeKeyAndOrderFront:].

[Dan Davison]

Hi George, thanks very much for working on that! If helpful, I'd be
happy to test when at an appropriate stage -- e.g. building from a git
branch would be fine.

Dan

2012/10/17 George Nachman <gnac...@llamas.org>:

[Marko Milivojevic]

Awesome, but I have a related questions - any plans for a new release? The last one that was in the autoupdate was back in July :-)

-Marko.

[George Nachman]

Work and life have been busy but I really want to do one soon. I just
have a few bugs I need to fix before I can do that. So sorry for the
low output lately!

[Marko Milivojevic]

We forgive you, but don't let it happen again ;-)

-Marko.

[Tor Nordam]

I was just wondering if this was fixed. I'm having the exact same problem as the original poster, and I found this thread while searching for a solution.

(Also, thanks for making the best terminal app on the Mac.)

Thanks,
Tor

[George Nachman]

No, but I plan to fix this for 3.1.

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[Roni Estein]

Any plan's to make this work on El Capitan, while in a lion style fullscreen or split screen. It would be amazing if I could overlay iterm2 with a hotkey while having a split screen with IDE and output.

Cheers,

-Roni

[George Nachman]

The planned fix ought to work in split screen, but I haven't tested it.

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