GUI plugins open on other Desktop/Workplace on macOS

[philja]

The only thing I don't like is the behaviour on the MacBook when the plugin runner starts up on the desktop where Sigil is open, and then the window where the work is done flips to another desktop. But that's the same for all the edit plugins I've got, so it's not a fault of this new plugin - rather, it's a 'feature' of Mac. One that doesn't encourage me to do serious stuff on the Mac.

[KevinH]

I never see that on either of my Macs. Was a problem sometimes with the older Tk widget library but not with PySide6 so far.

Are you by chance telling macOS to open new apps on another Desktop/Workspace? Or maybe utilizing the Desktop tiling features that MacOS supports (but I personally hate).

[DiapDealer]

Curious if something like this would help avoid losing the gui widget on some machines:

my_widget.setWindowFlags(QtCore.Qt.WindowStaysOnTopHint)

placed just before:

my_widget.show()

There's also:

my_widget.setWindowFlags(QtCore.Qt.Tool)

Even though it doesn't seem to happen everywhere all the time, I think this behavior might have something to do with widgets that have no parent.

[BeckyEbook]

I tried adding:

editor.setWindowFlags(QtCore.Qt.Tool)

and tested it on Windows.

Unfortunately, it introduced an unwanted side effect. If I click on the Sigil main window while the plugin window is open, the plugin window disappears and I have no way to bring it back. Since it is a Qt.Tool window, it doesn't have its own taskbar button, so it becomes effectively inaccessible until the plugin is restarted.

With the current implementation, the plugin window has its own taskbar button on Windows, so even if it gets hidden behind Sigil, it can easily be restored.

I'll also test the suggested change on macOS, since I understand the behavior there may be different.

-----

However, if I use

editor.setWindowFlags(QtCore.Qt.WindowStaysOnTopHint)

the plugin window remains above all other windows system-wide, even after switching to another application, which is also not the behavior I'm looking for.

[DiapDealer]

Agreed. Neither of those options would be an acceptable solution.

[philja]

Originally Posted by KevinH

I never see that on either of my Macs. Was a problem sometimes with the older Tk widget library but not with PySide6 so far.

Are you by chance telling macOS to open new apps on another Desktop/Workspace? Or maybe utilizing the Desktop tiling features that MacOS supports (but I personally hate).

Interesting that you don't have it. I've never consciously told macos to open new apps in another workspace, but it generally does that. And in general, I'm a fan of multiple workspaces, each with a single app (on Linux, & then more recently on Windows 10/11, and also on the Macbook).

What's more confusing on Mac is that 'Desktop' does not equal workspace. If I look at what's there at this moment (which is typical), Finder is open in what is labelled Desktop 1, Firefox is open on Desktop 2, and Desktop 3 is vacant. I can switch freely between them using Control + arrow keys L & R. So, looking at Firefox in Desktop 2, I decide to open Sigil. I click on Sigil in the Dock, and it opens in another workspace. When I press the F3 key, it shows Sigil sitting between Desktop 2 and Desktop 3 and simply named Sigil. It's in a complete window on its own with no Desktop name.

I now run an edit plugin, plugin runner opens on top of Sigil, and then, whoops, I'm diverted to Desktop 1 where the working window of the plugin is displayed.

I searched Apple Settings and don't see any mention of a tiling feature or a switch to launch new apps in another workspace.

I just put it all down to a mac peculiarity - probably not worth spending much time on.

[DiapDealer]

I don't want to completely junk up Becky's plugin thread with this particular issue, so I'll probably move this conversation into its own thread eventually. But I've found a couple suggestions that the user can try to fix this problem.

1. Change the Dock Settings (Most Common)

macOS remembers where applications are allowed to open. If your Python environment has been assigned to a specific Space, it will force a desktop switch every time you launch it.

1. Launch your plugin so its app icon appears in the macOS Dock.
2. Right-click (or two-finger tap) the app icon in the Dock.
3. Hover over Options.
4. Under the Assign To section, change the selection from This Desktop or Desktop on Display X to None.

2. Tweak System Space-Switching Behaviors

macOS has a feature that automatically whips you across desktops if it thinks a window is already active elsewhere. You can disable this overarching setting:

1. Open your Mac's System Settings.
2. Navigate to Desktop & Dock in the left sidebar.
3. Scroll down to the Mission Control section.
4. Toggle off the setting: "When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application".

This all came from google searching, so forgive me if the instructions don't actually match macOS's reality.

[philja]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I don't want to completely junk up Becky's plugin thread with this particular issue, so I'll probably move this conversation into its own thread eventually. But I've found a couple suggestions that the user can try to fix this problem.

1. Change the Dock Settings (Most Common)

macOS remembers where applications are allowed to open. If your Python environment has been assigned to a specific Space, it will force a desktop switch every time you launch it.

1. Launch your plugin so its app icon appears in the macOS Dock.
2. Right-click (or two-finger tap) the app icon in the Dock.
3. Hover over Options.
4. Under the Assign To section, change the selection from This Desktop or Desktop on Display X to None.

2. Tweak System Space-Switching Behaviors

macOS has a feature that automatically whips you across desktops if it thinks a window is already active elsewhere. You can disable this overarching setting:

1. Open your Mac's System Settings.
2. Navigate to Desktop & Dock in the left sidebar.
3. Scroll down to the Mission Control section.
4. Toggle off the setting: "When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application".

This all came from google searching, so forgive me if the instructions don't actually match macOS's reality.

Sorry - I hadn't meant to hijack Becky's plugin thread.

As for your two suggestions:

1. When an edit plugin is running, a Python icon appears in the Dock. Its Options/Assign to Section setting was already at 'None'

2. Change the Dock settings - this was already the way it was in my MacBook

Thanks for your efforts, DiapDealer - and please feel free to zap this problem to another thread.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by philja

Sorry - I hadn't meant to hijack Becky's plugin thread.

No blame. We all sort of did it.

Originally Posted by philja

As for your two suggestions:

1. When an edit plugin is running, a Python icon appears in the Dock. Its Options/Assign to Section setting was already at 'None'

2. Change the Dock settings - this was already the way it was in my MacBook

Thanks for your efforts, DiapDealer - and please feel free to zap this problem to another thread.

Well that's all I had. Oh well.

[KevinH]

And I can simply not recreate this with any Qt6/PySide6 plugin on either of my MacOS machines.

So some questions:

1. Are you by chance using an external python interpreter for plugins and not the one bundled into Sigil on MacOS?

2. Are you using MacOS 26 Tahoe? Could this be yet another Tahoe related bug?

When I run the EditMetaInEpub3 plugin, its window nicely pops up on top of Sigil and I have do not have to track it down in any way. The python icon in the Task bar can be clicked on at any time to bring the plugin window to the front if it ever gets pushed behind somethign else.

As I said, I am just not seeing this at all and haven't since we moved to PySide6 plugins and away from Tk based plugins.

I will try hunt down why I am not seeing this and you are?

[KevinH]

And I have attached a screenshot of the settings for "Desktop & Dock" that I use.

I always disable "Stage Manager", and turn off all ways to forcibly tile the windows.
And you can see those and my other settings in the screen shot that is attached.

I am a firm believer that the user putting app windows where he/she wants them and nothing should move or resize them. But that is me.

My guess is you have different settings under the "Mission Control" part of that Settings screen or something else.

You might want to also check your Accessibility settings as many Mac utilities can control desktop assignment and tiling.

Hope something here helps.

[philja]

Originally Posted by KevinH

And I have attached a screenshot of the settings for "Desktop & Dock" that I use.

I always disable "Stage Manager", and turn off all ways to forcibly tile the windows.
And you can see those and my other settings in the screen shot that is attached.

My guess is you have different settings under the "Mission Control" part of that Settings screen or something else.

You might want to also check your Accessibility settings as many Mac utilities can control desktop assignment and tiling.

Hope something here helps.

Thanks for the suggestions, Kevin. I had Stage Manager disabled and tried variants of what your image showed.

I've spent some time playing around with the macbook and I've found what's causing the problem. It's the way I use the green button.

All mac apps have a set of three colored buttons at the top left and I've always just clicked on the green button to get a full screen window. That act alone zaps Sigil from inside a named Desktop to its own workspace. And then use of an edit plugin always produces the problem with the working window moving to Desktop1.

If, on the other hand, I slide Sigil from its own workspace into a vacant Desktop, it appears half size. Then I hover on the green button and click the 'Fill & Arrange' full screen icon and Sigil expands to full screen and stays within that same named Desktop. Then, the edit plugin works as you expect.

Manually dragging the part sized Sigil to full screen size also keeps Sigil within the named Desktop.

Sadly, Sigil opens with a blank new file and then when I use the dropdown list to open a recent file, the new file opens in another workspace and the problem recurrs.

Since resizing Sigil by the means described above, I can now get Sigil to open in a named Desktop, full size, by double-click on an epub file. It opens in Desktop2, displacing Firefox to Desktop3. Maybe, eventually I can get it into the desired Desktop.

EDIT: Sigil or Mac seems to have learned. Now, when I double-click Sigil in the Dock, it opens a new blank file in Desktop2. Then when I use Sigil's dropdown list to open a recent file, it now opens inside the same Desktop. And I can switch between the two files by right-click
on the Sigil icon in the Dock. The selected file comes up full screen. No need to touch the green button.


I also use Scrivener and i recall asking on their forum why Scriv never opened full size on the Mac. Their dev's reply was that experience had showed them that it caused too many problems (without naming the problems).

When I right-click on the Scriv icon in the Dock, the bubble lists the last few files I have used at the top above the: options, show recents, and open. Clicking on one of those files opens it directly. A click on 'show recents' produces a horizontal alignemnt of Scriv icons with the same files avaialble as shown at the top of the bubble.

Sigil in the Dock does not display any previous recent files , not even when 'show recent' is clicked.

[KevinH]

Wow, we use very different methods for controlling Window sizing and positioning. I hate full screen and never use it, as it is not really a full screen but instead a new pseudo Desktop. I just set Sigil to the size I want it and it remembers. I drag and drop the epub I am currently working on from a Desktop folder where I keep current projects onto the Sigil icon on my Dock and it opens. All plugins run as expected. Even multiple windows work that way.

Not sure what to tell you, but this appears to be MacOS trying to start up different windows on different Desktops because you are in Full Screen mode much like a kiosk would work. Sorry, I do not think I can help with that. That is simply not an approach that Qt supports or controls well on MacOS.

[KevinH]

I read a bit up on Stage Manger and according to the docs it can group two or more apps to the same screen/Desktop. So maybe given your full-screen setup, Stage Manager might help.

FWIW with either the Ctrl or Options buttons help down, clicking the green button should convert it to Maximizing an app Window which grows it as big as it can be without using Full Screen mode. Maybe when maximizing instead of full screen you can get things to work together better. Again, these are things I never use as I do not want to ever track down an App I open.

[DiapDealer]

I almost never maximize a program, and I never use any in full screen/kiosk mode. On any platform. I do a lot of dragging and dropping between applications and file explorer windows.