Comments on: Spaces (Mac OS X 10.5): Still does not do the basic stuff right

By: Pierre Igot

Pierre Igot — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:12:10 +0000

Yes, I am afraid you are right. It applies to all applications. My scenario is just a 100% reproducible one involving Mail and Safari.

By: JKT

JKT — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:06:20 +0000

This isn’t unique to Mail. It happens with practically every app I use with more than one window open at the time – the wrong one always gains focus whenever jumping from one space to another, the correct one never. E.g. in OmniWeb I have the main window, the Downloads window and the Activity window open at all times and OmniWeb is assigned to a particular space. If another application grabs focus causing a switch of space, when I subsequently go back to OmniWeb, either the Downloads or the Activity window will have grabbed focus instead of the main window.

By: Pierre Igot

Pierre Igot — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:33:22 +0000

OK, it looks like the required steps are as follows:

1) Assign Mail to Space 1.
2) Do NOT assign Safari to any space nor to “Every Space”.
3) Open Mail in Space 1.
4) Switch to Space 2.
5) Open Safari in Space 2.
6) Go back to Space 1 and open a message containing web links in a separate window in Mail.
7) Click on one of the web links. This should switch you to Space 2 and open the site in a new window in Safari.
8) Use command-Tab to switch back to Mail.

Now, at least on my machine, the frontmost window in Mail is the mail viewer window, and the message window that was in the foreground when I left Mail is now in the background.

Can you reproduce this?

By: Pierre Igot

Pierre Igot — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:22:54 +0000

OK, I need to investigate this further. The problem actually occurs not with Safari assigned to another space, but with Safari not assigned to any specific space, while Mail is assigned to a specific space.

And it actually occurs after even simpler actions. Just switching to a different space, opening a window in that space and then hitting command-Tab to return to the previous application returns to a different window in that application.

It’s all very confusing, and obviously not right. But I need to come up with a 100%-reproducible behaviour. Hang tight :-).

By: AlanY

AlanY — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:30:40 +0000

I can’t reproduce this behavior. Switching to Safari in another space and then back to Mail selects the last Mail window for me.