problem with "hide (ing)"

[djejrejk]

Ok,.. this is a random question.

I'm having this weird problem with my Mac. The problem occurs randomly when I attempt to hide the last of a series of windows. For example, If I have AdiumX, Pages and Safari open and I attempt to hide Adium and Pages, no problem, but when I try to hide that last application (safari in this case) it does not work and the option in the menu bar is faded out.

I have a app, spirited away, which hides windows automatically, Im pretty sure it is the culprit. Anyone know of a simple terminal fix,.. I am trying to avoid reinstalling 10.4.10. (yes I am totally updated).

Any ideas?

 

[Grape]

Because you can't have zero apps showing. The people at Apple who implemented this feature could have put Finder at the bottom of the hide stack by default even if it has already been hidden. Of course, the trouble with that would have been, if Finder is to always come at the bottom of the stack even if it has been hidden, should the hidden windows be shown again or should only the desktop appear? but if only the desktop is to be shown, then the Finder is both selected as current app and has it's windows hidden... but of course, the Finder holds a special place in OS X, so this inconsistency could be allowed... but we still need a way to reveal the windows. well, the first click on the desktop could bring them back. but then, what would have been the point of not showing them right away once Finder became current, if the first click that a user makes anywhere causes them to appear again? ok, so Finder should be hidden if we get to it by hiding apps all the way to the bottom of the stack. But then you are nearly back where you started, with the bottom app not hideable, only now the bottom app is always Finder even if you have already hidden it, and inconsistency that was apparently deemed worse than just making the bottom app not hideable period.

Another option would be to put Exposé–Show Desktop at the bottom of the stack, with only the hidden Finder windows to be revealed if the sides are clicked, but this, too, is a fairly ugly solution.

The fact that a Mac can never be in a state of having no app selected and the fact that hidden app windows can only be accessed by selecting the app (unlike in Windows where hidden (minimised) windows can be accessed by clicking their icon on the taskbar directly) result in this silly dilemma.

 

[djejrejk]

Because you can't have zero apps showing. The people at Apple who implemented this feature could have put Finder at the bottom of the hide stack by default even if it has already been hidden. Of course, the trouble with that would have been, if Finder is to always come at the bottom of the stack even if it has been hidden, should the hidden windows be shown again or should only the desktop appear? but if only the desktop is to be shown, then the Finder is both selected as current app and has it's windows hidden... but of course, the Finder holds a special place in OS X, so this inconsistency could be allowed... but we still need a way to reveal the windows. well, the first click on the desktop could bring them back. but then, what would have been the point of not showing them right away once Finder became current, if the first click that a user makes anywhere causes them to appear again? ok, so Finder should be hidden if we get to it by hiding apps all the way to the bottom of the stack. But then you are nearly back where you started, with the bottom app not hideable, only now the bottom app is always Finder even if you have already hidden it, and inconsistency that was apparently deemed worse than just making the bottom app not hideable period.

Another option would be to put Exposé–Show Desktop at the bottom of the stack, with only the hidden Finder windows to be revealed if the sides are clicked, but this, too, is a fairly ugly solution.

The fact that a Mac can never be in a state of having no app selected and the fact that hidden app windows can only be accessed by selecting the app (unlike in Windows where hidden (minimised) windows can be accessed by clicking their icon on the taskbar directly) result in this silly dilemma.

good point,.. i think that spirited away is hiding the finder. This would explain the randomness of the problem.

 

[kostia]

good point,.. i think that spirited away is hiding the finder. This would explain the randomness of the problem.

Sounds right. You know Spirited Away has an "exclude" list, right? When I used it I always excluded Finder and Adium so they would never disappear on me.

 

[djejrejk]

Sounds right. You know Spirited Away has an "exclude" list, right? When I used it I always excluded Finder and Adium so they would never disappear on me.

Yeah, that fixed it. Thanks!

Any idea how to set finder to automatically appear on the exclude list on startup?