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Topic: «Issues with Tabbed Explorer and Virtual Desktops , (testing Actual Window Manager 8.11, 2017-06) » on forum: Technical Support   Views: 13290
 
Michael
Registered user
 
 Posts: 1
Joined: 06/28/2017
Posted: 06/28/2017 19:20:09
 
 
 Hi Actual Window Manager dev team,

I have recently installed AWM 8.11 in one of my Win 10 Pro x64 systems, primarily for testing the advertised tabbed Explorer interface and virtual desktops. Although I find that this idea has great productivity potential, currently, it has several issues:

a) Container window should be specific to the current virtual desktop:
  • If you press Win+E on a virtual desktop that does not yet have a container window, it switches to a (random?) virtual desktop that already has a container window and adds another tab there.
  • Sometimes, only the new tab is visible, but the Explorer content area is all white (changing on the tab to the left and back solves this).
  • Currently, the only way to get container windows for multiple virtual desktops, is to drag/tear off a tab from the initial container window and then drag&drop the new container window icon to the target desktop using virtual desktop switcher.
  • Expected result: Always open a new Explorer window in the current virtual desktop. If no container window exists for this virtual desktop so far, create one.
b) Hidden explorer dialogs:
  • If I copy or move many files, Explorer's status dialog window is not shown in foreground, but is invisible behind the container window.
  • This is especially annoying if you, e.g., delete files and Explorer asks for confirmation, but you don't see it: You hit delete again and again, nothing seems to happen, but the invisible confirmation dialog fills with questions in the background...
  • Only later, I saw the added icon in virtual desktop switcher, clicked it, and the Explorer dialog window came to the foreground.
c) Unwanted changes of the active virtual desktop:
  • Related to (b) but not identical, when copying or deleting many files from a tabbed Explorer window in one virtual desktop, the associated Explorer progress dialog window is launched in another virtual desktop.
  • In this case, the progress window is actually brought into the foreground and is visible, but the virtual desktop is changed as well! I.e. all active Windows from my work desktop are now invisible, including the container window in which I started the copy action.
  • Similarly, when opening the "Find & Replace" dialog via Ctrl+H in a Microsoft Word 2016 window on virtual desktop 2, AWM moves this dialog to virtual desktop 1 that contains an Explorer container window and focuses this Explorer container window. THis is an unwanted side effect of container windows (I mean, I just opened a dialog in Word and no Explorer was active at all at this time...)
d) Unwanted focusing of container windows and impossibility to switch from an active virtual desktop:
  • The following did not happen always, but sometimes: While an Explorer container window was active, I clicked on the icon of a window from another virtual desktop to change focus to it. AWM indeed briefly activates that target window&desktop, but immediately switches back to the container window in the origin desktop.
  • If this happens, it happens again and again. So, there seems to be no way to break out of the current virtual desktop. Luckily, I found two workarounds: It does not switch back to the origin desktop, if you click on an empty virtual target desktop. And it also works, if you first drag&drop the container window icon in virtual desktop switcher from the origin desktop to the target desktop before activating it.
The above are probably bugs with some common cause related to focusing container windows in different virtual desktops.
Next, some related use cases follow, together with suggestions to improve productivity:

e) Vertical tabs:
  • When working in a scientific environment, paths always tend to become longer (deep folder hierarchy). Simultaneously, sub folders in that hierarchy are often automatically generated and have the same name.
  • You can activate a Windows Explorer option to display full paths in title bars; and this also works for tab titles in AWM container windows.
  • However, if you have several Explorer tabs opened in such a deep folder hierarchy, you cannot directly distinguish their meaning, as all truncated tab titles look the same!
  • Suggestion: Make a display option to show tabs on the left side of the container window (vertical tabs), with a slider between the tab strip and embedded explorer windows. Then the tab width can be set interactively for each container window to make full tab titles (i.e. full path names) completely visible. This would also provide more overview in any use case that needs many tabs.
f) Integration with Windows 10 virtual desktops:
  • Windows 10 has its own virtual desktops feature. Maybe there is an API to sync it with your virtual desktop switcher?
  • I.e., you could press Win+Tab and then use the Windows-internal GUI to move windows between desktops.
  • Simultaneously, you could still use Actual Window Manager to move windows to named virtual desktops via hotkey or automatically based on window rules...
  • I used Win10 virtual desktops before trying virtual desktop switcher. Win10 is comparably inflexible and cannot be automatized, but it switches between desktops noticeably faster.
g) Speedup suggestion:
  • When switching desktops to a clicked icon of a target window in virtual desktop switcher, it is clearly visible that AWM at first shows windows of the target desktop as they were arranged last, and only then brings the clicked window of this desktop into foreground (with a noticeable lag).
  • Maybe, this lag can be reduced by changing the processing order from "hide current desktop windows"=>"unhide target desktop windows"=>"bring clicked target window into foreground" to "hide current desktop windows"=>"directly bring the clicked target window into foreground and make it visible"=>"only then unhide all remaining target desktop windows in the background, without changing their Z order". Is this possible?
I will check back in a month (or two or three) and will give Acutal Window Manager another try, when fixes are available.

Best and thanks,
Michael.
 
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Bogdan Polishchuk
Administrator
 
 Posts: 4010
Joined: 04/04/2012
Posted: 06/30/2017 20:50:27
 
 
 Hello, Michael

The behavior described in paragraph a) (except "Sometimes, only the new tab is visible, but the Explorer content area is all white") is a known problem. We'll try to fix it and will post here when it is fixed.

We'll consider the feature requests described in paragraphs e) and q) and will also post in this topic if they're implemented.

About paragraphs b), c) and d): I was unable to reproduce these problems. Could you send us your Actual Window Manager configuration files using the Send to Tech Support tool (Configuration module > Tools > Configuration > Send to Tech Support). Please add a link to this topic to the email.

About paragraph f): do you need the ability to manage the same virtual desktops (Windows native virtual desktops) partially via the standard Windows switcher and partially via Actual Window Manager (moving windows automatically)?

Best regards.
 
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Max
Registered user
 
 Posts: 25
Joined: 11/02/2019
Posted: 05/14/2021 23:45:16
 
 
 Is there any progress on the problems mentioned in (a)?
At the moment I'm still trying to circumvent the problem by opening all explorer windows on one desktop. It would really be much more hand if tabbed explorer would respect Windows Virtual Desktops and I could use a separate tabbed explorer window on each Virtual Desktop.
 
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Bogdan Polishchuk
Administrator
 
 Posts: 4010
Joined: 04/04/2012
Posted: 06/03/2021 21:40:30
 
 
 Hello, Max

Sorry for the delay in replying to you.

I think Michael described the interaction between Tabbed Explorer and our software's Virtual Desktops feature. But I guess you're talking about the same expected behavior but with Windows Virtual Desktops ("Expected result: Always open a new Explorer window in the current virtual desktop. If no container window exists for this virtual desktop so far, create one")?

Unfortunately there is no progress on implementing this behavior yet and we can't provide you any time frame for when this behavior will be implemented.


Best regards.
 
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