Editor Bug? Undocked/floating windows disappear (making them basically unusable)

Working with 1 display in Unity3 on Mac: Tear off the Game view, or do Window > Animation to get a floating window. then click on the Scene view or the inspector, then you lose all your foreground tool windows.

This is really frustrating way to work on one large display. Particularly when you want to have the Game window float, and also be able to tweak the inspector while playing.

Contrast this with how Maya 2011 works. If you tear off any menu, or pick anything from the Window menu, then it stays in front of the main window.

At least there are keyboard shortcuts for everything in the Window menu.

I thought about filing a bug report or feature request on this, but thought I would see what other people working on a single display think. I can see how it would be a non-issue on multiple displays, perhaps.

Overall , love the Unity editor gui.

 

I noticed the same thing when working with the profiler. My specific issue was that when I tried to click the drag-area of the profiler window (in a torn off floating window) it would click-through to the scene and pause my game/hide my profiler window.

 

This is by design. I would prefer for them to float as well, but I couldn't talk anyone else here into it. So yeah, I put those windows on a second monitor... for people with one monitor on OSX it might be annoying. I'll keep poking Nich about this every now and then, but he's pretty convinced that they shouldn't float on OSX (they do on PC).

 

Technically it's not a bug...there are two types of windows, those that are always on top and those that aren't. Making a custom wizard, for example, is always on top. I hadn't thought about whether non-always-on-top windows are a problem, since I use tabs for everything and don't have floating windows, which has been working well.

You're on a Mac; there are keyboard shortcuts for every single menu item if desired. Go to the keyboard preferences and add/change anything you want.

--Eric

 

Phew, I've been trying it out on the Mac and noticed this too, highly annoying, glad the PC one doesn't suffer from it too!

 

Thanks Ethan, please do keep prodding now and again. Maya 2011 on Mac is a good counterexample of how such windows should work . IMHO
@Eric, yes, keyboard shortcuts or unfortunately yet just keeping all windows docked seems to be the only solution if you want to see the inspector and anything else at the same time.

 

Maya, and other 3d apps on OSX, were my argument against this, but it didn't work... yet

 

I'm having trouble coming up with any examples at all (3D or otherwise) of floating windows that don't stay on top, aside from Unity....

--Eric

 

One strong supporting argument might be found from the Apple Human Interface Guidelines where one can refer the "panels" behaviour: "Panels float above other windows and provide tools or controls that users can work with while documents are open."

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGWindows/XHIGWindows.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000961-TP9

BR, Juha

 

Ethan, at al:

What's worse, Window > Bring all to Front has no effect on Mac anyways- don't have a Windows box to try it on. Ugh! Unity should just not allow tear-off panels if they are going to act all weird and disappear behind the main window.
I filed a bug on this:
Ticket# 381251_ghnnjdfv

Thanks if you can bump this somehow, or maybe it will be fixed in 3.1 - that would be sweet.

 

@Ethan,
See (Case 381251) "Editor windows keep getting lost behind the main editor".
Morten said he is closing the ticket because it's "by design". I am pleading with him not to close it, and that the design is broken. I asked him to contact you.

@Juha, Thanks for the link to the Apple HIG docs, hopefully that will help.

 

I'm also having trouble with floating windows (since u3.0-pro).

Have a look on this thread :
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/67135-Player-crashing-on-launch-something-to-do-with-screen-size-and-windowing.

And if some people could try to do my test and report back basically what their setup is and what FPS they're getting, that'd be great. THx.

 

Cool, I just got word that case 381251 is resulting in a change of behavior for detachable editor panels! Thanks to Morten, Ethan everyone who helped on this one

 

Am I missing something, or is this bug still not fixed after six months and two releases?

 

It's not a bug.

 

It's a bug according to Apple's UI guidelines, plus common sense because it's annoying as hell. It's still not fixed. I'm going to add a note to case 381251 in case it got lost.

 

Seems like this one slipped through the cracks, because here is a response on the case

 

Thanks for the update Alex. Let's hope the fix gets added into 3.4.

 

Not having the windows float in front is a terrible idea. Unity is the only app where I need to constantly use command ~ or Exposé all the time, in order to find windows. What app is there where dockable windows move behind, like that? There's got to be some precedent.

 

Jessy, thank you! I didnt know about Command ~ (actually Command ` ). That's great. I had given up on it because Window | Bring all to front is a noop on Unity on the Mac. But Command ` is just the trick.

 

Dredging up an old thread, but: on OS X Lion with Unity 3.5 you can go full screen and voila- strangely enough, floating/detached editor windows *always stay on front* . Yay! A nice christmas present. Still reading through the release notes wow...

 

Could we please get this one finally fixed. Unity 4 is still hiding floating panes behind the main window. And the full screen mode - although a nice addition - can't be said to be a real solution to this problem, it is merely a workaround.

 

I agree by the way if anyone @ Unity wants to followup see fogbugz case 381251.

edit: quick summary, this is supposedly working as designed on the Mac, and has been closed as "feature request".

My suggestion for now is just get used to it, or use full-screen mode, which I find hard because of the horrible OS X sliding animation when you switch to another app from a fullscreen app. Or just use Mission Control (Ctrl-down arrow) or a keyboard shortcut.

Cheers.

 

I too think that this functionality should be consistent with Unity on Windows. It seems odd that the two behave differently and having the window continuously vanishing behind the scenes is very annoying.

Thanks for the tip Jessy, very useful! But I still think that this behaviour should be changed.

 

Please vote here: http://feedback.unity3d.com/unity/all-categories/1/hot/active/dockable-windows-should-stay-on-

 

It's a terrible design idea! Please slap him for me (joking! - no physical violence please!)

What on earth could be the reason for having them disappear? I would have thought it was a one sided argument, curious to hear the reasoning behind it.

Anyway just wanted to add that I'm also finding windows unusable on Mac, which work perfectly on on windows. Also was also hoping for some work around, full screen mode is not a solution, anything in code that we could do?

Thanks for this Jessy, going to come in handy!

 

This is still an issue, it is a terrible desing. The full screen mode is not a solution. It is annoying to always loose editor windows under the main Unity Editor. Maybe with some divine help this will finally get solved, let's keep voting here http://feedback.unity3d.com/unity/all-categories/1/hot/active/dockable-windows-should-stay-on-

 

I'm necroing this thread just to say that this is still an issue. And it's not even an OSX issue, since I haven't noticed this with any other app.

 

I agree, it would be cool that someone at Unity took a look at this issue!! @support

 

This bug persists in Unity 2017.4 (final build prior to 2018). Any window that disappears off screen and cannot be located behind the main Unity window, or otherwise found, cannot be returned to the screen. You have to go into regedit (on Windows) and change the x and y values for the missing window to all 0s. Upon reloading the application, voila, your missing window will reappear in the upper left corner

Even returning your Layout to factory settings or installing a new version of Unity won't solve the problem, you have to find the window in regedit and fix it. Gross and dangerous!

 

Still happening in 2018.3.0f2.

 

2020.3 LTS - What's the point of the new focused inspector windows if they instantly disappear behind the Unity editor as soon as you click anything. Opening multiple focused inspector windows is supposed to be useful but I just end up with tons of open panels hiding behind the UI. On Mac Big Sur btw.

Edit: I see, you have to hit the little green system button on the top left of the Unity window to make it "Fullscreen". Then floating windows will stay on top of the editor. I don't really like fullscreen mode on Mac because the menu and taskbar is hidden until you mouse to the top/bottom edge of the screen but at least I know how to use floating panels.