I've assigned Igor to desktop 3 by dock/right click/ assign to/ desktop 3. I think this is the only way to do this (in Snow Leopard it used to be somewhere in system preferences). This sends me to desktop 3 when I open Igor, or an Igor experiment. However, the command line and data browser stay on the desktop from which I launched Igor. If opening an experiment, the other windows show on desktop 3, but the command line and data browser on the desktop from which I opened the experiment.
Any ideas? This seems like a bug, but is it an Igor bug or a Lion bug? Other programs seem to behave as expected when assigned to a particular desktop using mission control.
I have also found this. I think the route you described for assigning programmes to specific desktops in lion is the only way - I haven't been able to find it anywhere in system preferences. I also find the command line on the desktop from which Igor was launched after it switches. I haven't found a way around this (other than going to the desktop that I know it will appear on before launching - but this is a little annoying). I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any info on this.
Thanks for the sanity check - I was wondering if it was a case of user error on my part, but it doesn't seem that's the case if you've encountered the same problem. I'll flag this with Wavemetrics if no one points out our error!
Any ideas? This seems like a bug, but is it an Igor bug or a Lion bug?
Mission control, previously known as Spaces, does not work with Carbon applications in Mac OS X 10.7. This is a bug in the OS.
If you assign Igor to a desktop, it still opens in the current desktop, not the assigned desktop. This appears to be an Apple bug. We recommend that the user assign Igor to no desktop as follows:
Quit and relaunch Igor
Click and hold the Igor application icon in the dock
Choose Options->None to assign Igor to no desktop
From the Apple Carbon mailing list,
Quote:
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:15:24 -0700
From: Eric Schlegel, Apple Computer
Subject: Re: Spaces/Desktop behavior for carbon apps in Lion
Quote:
Is this a bug in Mac OS X Lion, or is there something missing in my Carbon code (or potentially something that I am doing that I should not be doing) that would interfere with the system properly putting the windows into the correct Space/Desktop on relaunch?
I think it's an unimplemented feature in Carbon that we don't currently restore windows to the space on which they were positioned when the app was quit. Please file a bug about that.
Thanks for the info on that. Do I understand then that Apple are working to fix this? It's going to be a right pain either having other application windows on the same virtual desktop as Igor (given they're not contained like they are on Windows), or having to switch to an empty desktop each time I open an Igor experiment....
I'm running multiple instances of Igor Pro 8 and was hoping to separate them onto different desktops but to no avail. Igor is no longer a Carbon app so I was wondering if there is any chance of getting this bug fixed.
I hadn't read that note about Spaces for a while, and had forgotten how gently we worded it. Unfortunately, Spaces is one of those technologies where Apple does things behind the scenes, and changes the basic assumptions we use to keep Igor windows organized. Apple has a history of doing things like this- for most users the things they do probably do cool, convenient things. But Igor is not the usual sort of application- it is very unusual to have an application in which different windows contain radically different content (graphs, procedures, tables, etc.) and it is extremely unusual to have a programming language that manipulates windows as Igor does.
So the bottom line is that Spaces was simply not designed with Igor in mind. Before we released Igor 7, I spent quite a bit of effort trying to make Igor compatible with Spaces. I was not able to figure out how to do it.
Understood. Apple is as Apple does, particularly these days.
I was wondering though if you had considered putting Igor on Mac in a single window such as it is on Windows. I suspect that would be a non-trivial amount of work though. I have always wondered though why the Windows version is boxed in while the Mac version isn't.
The underlying issue for me is that there is no easy way to distinguish the windows of one instance of Igor from those of another. This leads to me being hopelessly confused when moving data from one to another. In the end I just started using Excel as a glorified clipboard.
It is our perception that the "MDI" style (Multiple Document Interface) is just the style on Windows. it took us, as long-time Mac users, the adjust to that. It is actually possible to have Igor on Macintosh in a box, but we didn't make that option available because the Qt framework implementation of MDI style for Macintosh is so bad.
You are correct that it would solve the Spaces problem, sort of, since it would put all of Igor inside a single window.
We considered non-MDI style as an optional choice for Windows, but couldn't figure out where to put the menu bar. On Windows, every window potentially has a menu bar; there isn't a single central location like on Macintosh. That is actually part of the reason for the divide in styles these days.
January 30, 2012 at 06:44 am - Permalink
January 30, 2012 at 07:27 am - Permalink
Mission control, previously known as Spaces, does not work with Carbon applications in Mac OS X 10.7. This is a bug in the OS.
If you assign Igor to a desktop, it still opens in the current desktop, not the assigned desktop. This appears to be an Apple bug. We recommend that the user assign Igor to no desktop as follows:
From the Apple Carbon mailing list,
January 30, 2012 at 07:53 am - Permalink
January 30, 2012 at 11:37 am - Permalink
I suspect it is not a priority for them.
January 30, 2012 at 12:11 pm - Permalink
I'm running multiple instances of Igor Pro 8 and was hoping to separate them onto different desktops but to no avail. Igor is no longer a Carbon app so I was wondering if there is any chance of getting this bug fixed.
Cheers,
Bruce
July 5, 2020 at 09:51 pm - Permalink
Our current recommendation regarding Spaces can be found at https://www.wavemetrics.com/faq/why-do-i-get-unexpected-results-when-using-igor-pro-7-spaces-macintosh-os-x-0. The ability (or inability) of Igor to work differently with Spaces is out of our control and is unlikely to change much in the future.
July 6, 2020 at 05:13 am - Permalink
I hadn't read that note about Spaces for a while, and had forgotten how gently we worded it. Unfortunately, Spaces is one of those technologies where Apple does things behind the scenes, and changes the basic assumptions we use to keep Igor windows organized. Apple has a history of doing things like this- for most users the things they do probably do cool, convenient things. But Igor is not the usual sort of application- it is very unusual to have an application in which different windows contain radically different content (graphs, procedures, tables, etc.) and it is extremely unusual to have a programming language that manipulates windows as Igor does.
So the bottom line is that Spaces was simply not designed with Igor in mind. Before we released Igor 7, I spent quite a bit of effort trying to make Igor compatible with Spaces. I was not able to figure out how to do it.
July 6, 2020 at 10:52 am - Permalink
In reply to I hadn't read that note… by johnweeks
Hi John,
Understood. Apple is as Apple does, particularly these days.
I was wondering though if you had considered putting Igor on Mac in a single window such as it is on Windows. I suspect that would be a non-trivial amount of work though. I have always wondered though why the Windows version is boxed in while the Mac version isn't.
The underlying issue for me is that there is no easy way to distinguish the windows of one instance of Igor from those of another. This leads to me being hopelessly confused when moving data from one to another. In the end I just started using Excel as a glorified clipboard.
Regards,
Bruce
July 6, 2020 at 04:13 pm - Permalink
It is our perception that the "MDI" style (Multiple Document Interface) is just the style on Windows. it took us, as long-time Mac users, the adjust to that. It is actually possible to have Igor on Macintosh in a box, but we didn't make that option available because the Qt framework implementation of MDI style for Macintosh is so bad.
You are correct that it would solve the Spaces problem, sort of, since it would put all of Igor inside a single window.
We considered non-MDI style as an optional choice for Windows, but couldn't figure out where to put the menu bar. On Windows, every window potentially has a menu bar; there isn't a single central location like on Macintosh. That is actually part of the reason for the divide in styles these days.
July 6, 2020 at 04:41 pm - Permalink
One option on macOS may be to use a third party desktop manager.
https://totalspaces.binaryage.com
https://ianyh.com/amethyst/
July 7, 2020 at 05:41 am - Permalink