P: Support for native full-screen mode on macOS

@Lumigraphics wrote: I make my living with Adobe software and this does nothing to help me whatsoever.

David, you've been part of the Photoshop Community since 2014 (part of the time as a Community Expert) and surely know by now that the product developers don't direct their development toward only one individual's requirements. I suspect that none of us use every feature in Photoshop. If a feature doesn't help you, the answer is simple: don't use it. If there are other features you would like to see, you know how to make a feature request.

I'm not sure why you think this is a "win" but ok. I'd rather see limited resources go to fixing the bazillion real problems. I make my living with Adobe software and this does nothing to help me whatsoever.

@jane-e That's absolutely fair. I always said they should offer an option for both, and now they have. We can all win from this.

@Lumigraphics A lot of times, consumers do know better than corporations, yes. Don't tell me you're still gleefully paying one of the most expensive subscriptions on the planet for the software when they very well can't cater to every single consumer's request and will make some unhappy. God forbid they actually took a really highly upvoted and decade-old request and finally listened to implement it. If you don't want to use it, then don't. But don't insult everyone here acting high and mighty that this can't possibly get better over time and is a "waste of resources". We've reached a really good win here, and it will continue to improve. It's our job as high paying consumers to report stuff and ensure it improves in the right ways.

I don't like tabs, the application frame, OR full screen. LOL. I would have preferred that Adobe used its engineering resources elsewhere, this is a waste.

@Conrad_C wrote Yes, but the tabs issue is legitimate and needs to be fixed.

When the tab interface works with macOS Full Screen Mode, I'll use Full Screen Mode. Until then, we have a choice, and mine will be to choose the tabbed interface (which to me is essential) over working in Full Screen Mode.

It will be a happy day when we no longer have to choose!

Jane

Not a valid defense, in my opinion. This isn't a thing that is breaking the foundations of the interface, native full screen essentially has expanded the canvas a tiny bit past what it was before. Is it going to require possibly resizing some elements? Yes. But that's why you develop these things. Resting on your imperfect laurels and saying this shouldn't be where it is because of a couple scaling differences is insanely narrow-minded.

We can either celebrate this was finally implemented, report necessities and let the developers slowly fix them to make an ultimately better product, or we can sit in the old days forever and intentionally accept all the other problems that existed without native full screen.

Affinity, Pixelmator, tons of other professional apps like Final Cut Pro, Davinci Resolve and even Adobe's own Lightroom have implemented a native full-screen with a fully operational UI. It's not doomed now that literally the first test phases are launched. Like I said before, this is good progress and I commend them putting it in. I'm just reporting what I think is important to address first now.

Adobe Staff knew this and warned us twelve years ago:

@J453 wrote on 28 March 2012
If we replace Photoshop's Full Screen mode with the native 10.7 full screen mode, then our users will loose the following functionality:
The ability to use multiple displays while in fullscreen mode
The ability to switch between different document windows while in fullscreen mode

By @jane-e 

Yes, but the tabs issue is legitimate and needs to be fixed. This is because it’s standard for macOS full screen mode to support multiple tabbed documents. For example, when Safari or Apple Pages are in macOS full screen mode, the tabs are there, and they work. This is also true for at least two of the photo apps that compete with Photoshop.

When Photoshop is in macOS full screen mode, it is not possible to work around this problem by floating a window and docking a tab to that. (well…you can, but the floating window ends up in a different Space.) Related to that, Window > Application Frame is dimmed. Which is interesting because it looks like when Photoshop is in macOS full screen mode, it does not fully support all of the features of macOS full screen mode or the Photoshop Application Frame…it’s in some kind of mystery zone between them.

Hopefully their intention is to continue to refine it so that it works more as expected.

@defaultc5k0o0z0c1i0 wrote on 29 Jan 2024: However, the tabs not showing thing (I'm guessing due to scale), that I imagine has to be addressed.

Adobe Staff knew this and warned us twelve years ago:

@J453 wrote on 28 March 2012

If we replace Photoshop's Full Screen mode with the native 10.7 full screen mode, then our users will loose the following functionality:

• The ability to use multiple displays while in fullscreen mode
• The ability to switch between different document windows while in fullscreen mode

It's been a while since I was getting a bit fed up with Adobe ignoring this for so long and have been using Affinity. I have to give props though, looks like they finally did it. I haven't been able to use it yet, but I'm going off of what others have posted in here.

I'm more than satisfied that they added it. Using Affinity for a while, the native full screen just cleans up the workflow more than one can imagine. It's insanely helpful, and would likely fix those annoying canvas snapping errors you'd get on windowed mode, and the placement errors I'd get on Photoshop's full screen mode.

Regarding the 3 issues I've seen, pressing ESC exiting full screen mode: that's a macOS behaviour that Adobe can't fix. I have no qualms about that myself, I'm never reaching for that key using Photoshop.

The portion of the canvas hiding behind the panels, I'd think you can just scale down the canvas so it doesn't get hidden? If I need to work close in on an image, I already know I'm sacrificing the edges for a little while until I zoom back out.

However, the tabs not showing thing (I'm guessing due to scale), that I imagine has to be addressed. I often work with multiple documents open at once, sometimes dragging elements between tabs too. Maybe I'll even drop a colour or sample something to use across documents. There needs to be a way to see the tabs. I'd imagine they ultimately shrink the workspace down a couple notches to fit it or something, but that's the one I'd be concerned about. I think tabs are a core enough necessity that they'd have to address it, not too worried about it. Just finally getting native full-screen after this long is a huge win in my book.

You wanted native full screen and you got it but now you want something different. Oy vey. One of the biggest attractions of the Mac is that every app doesn't go off and work its own way (unlike Windows and Linux.) You learn how to use it ONCE and it should work the same everywhere.

By @Lumigraphics 

@Lumigraphics 

We wanted a well-implemented full-screen mode, not a poorly executed one with all of these aforementioned flaws. Don't act as if they are the same thing.