Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Share what you’d like to see added to Ableton Live.
Post Reply
Nokatus
Posts: 1068
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:06 am

Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Nokatus » Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:58 pm

When engaging fullscreen mode, there still isn't any way to access the standard window menus on the GUI? File, Edit, Create, View, Options... At least in Windows I can't find anything. Currently it's not working even with the alt-shortcuts of the individual menus like in earlier versions, which makes me believe the menu objects are being removed completely while in fullscreen mode?

An option to keep the menu strip visible (or at the very least, keep menus accessible through Alt-F, Alt-E, Alt-C... like when in windowed mode) would make fullscreen mode all around more usable.
Last edited by Nokatus on Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Stromkraft » Mon Feb 26, 2018 7:13 am

Nokatus wrote:When engaging fullscreen mode, there still isn't any way to access the standard window menus? File, Edit, Create, View, Options... At least in Windows I can't find anything.
Really? So what happens if you bring the mouse pointer to the top of the screen? Nothing? Have you tried another display resolution? Sometimes the screen can be outside of the display borders because of some size/resolution mismatch.

At least on macOS the menu bar drops down when you bring the mouse up there. I assume Ableton are using the native APIs for full screen. How do other apps work in Windows (10 is it?) with full screen?
Make some music!

Nokatus
Posts: 1068
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:06 am

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Nokatus » Mon Feb 26, 2018 10:07 am

Stromkraft wrote:Really? So what happens if you bring the mouse pointer to the top of the screen? Nothing? Have you tried another display resolution? Sometimes the screen can be outside of the display borders because of some size/resolution mismatch.
Yeah, nothing ;)

There has never been a menu there, in fullscreen mode, on the Windows version.

In other apps, it varies how it's done, some have the menu visible up there in fullscreen mode (like Reaper), others have an area where you can click or hover for the menu. At the very least, the alt-shortcuts for menu entries usually always work. Pressing alt once and letting go will make the menu appear in a lot of software that doesn't default to showing it, for example, that's one very standard way of showing the menu strip. Works even in the likes of Firefox where I'm typing this now, hah (just made sure by tapping alt). [Correction: Firefox has the menu hidden these days, and I was actually in the "Maximized" window mode; alt works when showing the menu in that mode, just like in Windowed mode. But in fullscreen (F11) it actually doesn't xD]

There's no way in Live now. At least I haven't found one? It would be great if I'm just missing something here. But at the moment it seems not even the alt-shortcuts for specific menus work (alt-f, alt-e, etc..) so there's no way to access the menus at all. As you can imagine, it can make using the fullscreen mode rather an odd experience.
Last edited by Nokatus on Mon Feb 26, 2018 10:37 am, edited 3 times in total.

Nokatus
Posts: 1068
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:06 am

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Nokatus » Mon Feb 26, 2018 10:21 am

In the manual, it says "When in Full Screen Mode on OS X version 10.9 or higher, Live’s menus will appear when moving your mouse pointer to the top of the screen." But nothing on the Windows version... :)

I just made sure, the alt-f, alt-e (and so on) keys work in Live 8 when in fullscreen mode, so I'm not imagining things, haha. They bring up the relevant open menus (never showing the actual menu strip), and you can also navigate to the adjacent ones with arrow keys after showing one. In Live 10, as far as I can see, there's no way.

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Stromkraft » Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:09 pm

Nokatus wrote:In the manual, it says "When in Full Screen Mode on OS X version 10.9 or higher, Live’s menus will appear when moving your mouse pointer to the top of the screen." But nothing on the Windows version... :)

I just made sure, the alt-f, alt-e (and so on) keys work in Live 8 when in fullscreen mode, so I'm not imagining things, haha. They bring up the relevant open menus (never showing the actual menu strip), and you can also navigate to the adjacent ones with arrow keys after showing one. In Live 10, as far as I can see, there's no way.
This is Live 9 I assume? Have you tried Live 10? I know there were some windows-specific updates regarding high resolution displays and it would be odd to implement that and leave out full screen, if that wasn't available before.

I fail to see why the usual Windows APIs for full screen — that I'd assume are available and in use by many applications with full screen functionality — couldn't be used, but I'm no Windows developer.

I'd assume someone have posted about this years ago. I don't remember reading it though.
Make some music!

Nokatus
Posts: 1068
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:06 am

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Nokatus » Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:26 pm

Stromkraft wrote:This is Live 9 I assume? Have you tried Live 10?
Live 10. This wasn't this big of a problem before, as the menus themselves were accessible through alt-f etc, even if the menu bar itself wasn't visible. But now in Live 10 there's no way of getting into them, as far as I can see. And the only mention in the manual about those menus when in fullscreen is for Macs.

Nokatus
Posts: 1068
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:06 am

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Nokatus » Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:36 pm

It seems it has been posted about pretty much always, though. Like, well over a decade.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=71312
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=41832
https://www.reddit.com/r/ableton/commen ... ble_is_it/

And right now in Live 10 none of that seems to work (even though it would also be very cool to be able to toggle the menu visible somewhere, while in fullscreen.)

Nokatus
Posts: 1068
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:06 am

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Nokatus » Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:43 pm

Someone has asked about this in Live 10 previously, too, it seems: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=229400

So I gather it's not just happening over here.

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Stromkraft » Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:55 pm

This is a very sad state of affairs indeed. I had no idea full screen would pose a difficult problem for Ableton to solve in the standard Windows way. Maybe it has something to do with Qt that I think Live uses, or at least used in 9, I'm not sure. I've had a couple of odd bugs with it in macOS, but nothing major.
Make some music!

H20nly
Posts: 16058
Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:15 pm
Location: The Wild West

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by H20nly » Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:37 pm

weak.

what about just pressing "alt" by itself? that usually takes you to the first menu option (in most cases File)?

Nokatus
Posts: 1068
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:06 am

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Nokatus » Tue Feb 27, 2018 11:48 pm

Nah, doesn't work. Like I pondered above, that's one of the standard ways to bring up the menu itself, when it's hidden in a Windows application, but nope.

Nokatus
Posts: 1068
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:06 am

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Nokatus » Wed Mar 14, 2018 8:03 am

No mention of this in the recent beta release notes so far, at least. Just thinking out loud here, I think the alt-shortcuts not working (and thereby making it impossible to enter the menus in any way while in fullscreen mode) is actually a bug? Not that it's a high prio thing at present or anything.

Nokatus
Posts: 1068
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:06 am

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Nokatus » Tue Feb 26, 2019 3:35 pm

Bump, almost a year later. Just feels silly having to disable full screen mode just to use a menu item.

Idonotlikebroccoli
Posts: 1205
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2005 12:29 pm
Location: Norway

Re: Access standard menus (File, Edit..) when in fullscreen

Post by Idonotlikebroccoli » Sun Mar 17, 2019 7:26 am

On Windows 10, I used to be able to press alt+f to access the file menu in full screen, but now it doesn't work. Please fix! :/

Post Reply