Ableton Forum

on osx, i find that when live loses focus, all the plugin (au) windows are hidden. this is a bit annoying when trying to read a pdf manual for a plugin and as soon as the pdf reader gets focus, the synth interface disappears.

on the windows version of live, the plugins stayed on screen. can i get my mac to do the same?

edit: it would also be useful for plugin windows to stay open so that i can drop wav files into a plugin from finder or audiofinder. but of course as soon as you start dragging the file, live loses focus and the plugin window disappears.

check preferences > look and feel

You can control the behaviour of the plugin windows there.

thanks for the suggestion, but i already tried all the plugin options in the look and feel preferences but the plugins still disappear whenever live loses focus.

any other ideas?

My bad. Misread your post.
There's no option to control it for when Live goes out of focus.

okay, thanks anyway

at least u can press alt+apple+p to bring it back to top

2 monitors

would not solve this.

nor would 7, 11, or 15 monitors. There is no solution.

F9 ?...

pat the dog wrote:on osx, i find that when live loses focus, all the plugin (au) windows are hidden. this is a bit annoying when trying to read a pdf manual for a plugin and as soon as the pdf reader gets focus, the synth interface disappears.

on the windows version of live, the plugins stayed on screen. can i get my mac to do the same?

edit: it would also be useful for plugin windows to stay open so that i can drop wav files into a plugin from finder or audiofinder. but of course as soon as you start dragging the file, live loses focus and the plugin window disappears.

12 years later this is still not possible?? wtf

This might be obvious to you, but I though I'd mention it in case you don't know this already.

Unlike most DAWs, Live's native devices do not require opening new windows. It's only with third party plugins. An alternative (that might sound stupid) is to make use of the Device View to control your plugins nd not even open a popup window. See 17.2.1 Plug-Ins in the Device View in the manual.

If the parameters do not show up by default, just use Configure to add them. You can arrange them in whatever order makes sense to you. Tedious, but only needs to be done once. Then you can program without needing the popup window. As a bonus, many third party MIDI controllers map to the configured parameters in banks of 8 at a time without having to use MIDI Learn.

Hope this helps.

That's cool. *bookmark*

Personally, I just use cmd + tab (Mac) or alt + tab (Windows) and just toggle between the two applications

you can use cmd + shift + tab (alt + shit + tab) if you have 3 or more applications to toggle between and need to go back.


If I absolutely must have both up at the same time, Live has this thing is does where you can shrink it and move it to the side.


maybe in 2007, when my resolution was 1024 x 768, i would have been more annoyed. fortunately, i didn't start using plugins until after wide-screen became a thing.

Hey all, well the OP still has a point and for exactly the reason mentioned..

You know what, I've helped organisations across the globe be better at releasing software, including Barclays, BT, BAE, Microsoft, blah. blah, blah..

It's an easy fix and something that would help users, not only that it's just crap UX and not fit for use as per the OP's request.

Unfortunately, times are changing and the competition is catching up.. Maybe not so much in the MAX field but Luna, Bitwig, etc are starting to kill it in respect to interface.. (Having said that, they both have some way to go, but promising all the same).

So ABLETON, it's 2020.. Be brave, why not release your backlogs and make them public? Obviously hide the confidential stuff. but let's see it and let us vote as, to be honest, your Product Owners are lost..

Don't get me wrong it's a cracking tool but it's getting dated!

Personally, I want better colours (Honestly, it's just a horrid swatch set), more options in Categories (7 FFS??? Who decided that?), I'd like more width in the Track Titles... Etc etc....

But these closing windows???? Was that by design??? Or is it a bug that you just don't wish to fix???

Either way, it's still a cool tool - but the competition is biting your ankles..

To keep windows open on mac if not in focus. Specifically I wanted Loopcloud to stay open as it's window is outside Ableton
Found out that Loopcloud App had this in it's own preference so helped for me. Possibley check the APP and set to something like Alwasys stay on top which is exactly what I needed. Ableton is behind on these settings yes so hope for better.