P: Support for native full-screen mode on macOS

Final post at this point. I just want to inform everyone that something does exist that has this feature, runs a lot smoother on a much newer framework, has a one time fee of $139.99 CAD for the entire suite of apps (both iPad/Mac, one time fee), or $56.99 CAD for the Photoshop equivalent alone on both iPad and Mac. Serif continues to make meaning updates alongside Apple and actually feels like an app for the people.

I know this will get pulled down by Adobe and I don't care. I'm done with Adobe and its snobbery, asking long term members to pay a massive $28-72 a month for its apps, only to continue ignoring its users and refusing to even meet halfway on an almost 12 year old system function. I've tried to work around this one limitation for over a decade and Photoshop just continues to suck at retaining a functional window view without springing around as it wishes.

I sincerely hope more people will jump ship for the smarter choice, because unless Adobe smartens up and rethinks its "I'm right, you're wrong" culture and its audacity to charge $336-864+tax annually with really shady lock-in on cancellations, they're just a bully as a megacorp, using their dominance to enforce absurd prices due to a lack of alternatives. Well, Affinity IS that alternative. Speak with your wallets, it's clear they won't listen otherwise. Goodbye Adobe.

Man Adobe, you're hilarious. One year into Windows 11 and you release an update to incorporate their native OS window docking feature. 11 years after macOS Lion's full-screen implementation and you refuse to do anything about it or listen to the hundreds of votes asking for even an option between it and Photoshop's full screen.

By the way, "This works in Lightroom" (a completely different app) and "our users would lose multiple displays and document windows" (which is no longer even true at this point) are not correct answers. They are massive middle fingers that masquerade as an option that has no problems. Well, hundreds of votes and 10+ pages of comments over 11 years of people complaining about the current full screen and begging for even an option with macOS full screen says otherwise. Even with 24.0, I open the app and immediately the same problems I've listed over the years are still there. Full screen mode on Mac SUCKS. It is riddled with problems, and these problems are compounded when it has to play by its own separate rules when literally every other app I come across uses macOS's full screen feature. Photoshop springs around wherever it wants, disappearing into a corner, toolbars disappearing in full screen, etc. Apple figured this out 11 years ago, Adobe still hasn't.

I don't care at this point if you have to forego any other new features to the Mac version of Photoshop and simply rewrite the app to follow the Lightroom structure to allow native full screen. It needs to be done. Photoshop 2023 and Photoshop's full screen is still very unpleasant to use. Listen to all the votes and just acknowledge it needs to be done. Give us a roadmap at the least instead of going dark after years of a "you're wrong, we're always right" attitude. I still can't believe how dated a software literally titled Photoshop 2023 feels because I have to jump through every hoop to even pretend like I can attempt replicating a useful layout. An option to use both would satisfy everyone.

There are some differences between windows and mac when in Photoshop's Full Screen mode, the main difference being that on a mac in Photoshop's Full Screen mode one cannot access the Menu Bar or Dock, which is why having photoshop be able to use the macOS Native Full Screen Mode is very important.

In fact as far as i know, photoshop 7, cs and cs2 were the last photoshop applications on the mac os x side that one could access the menu bar and dock without leaving Full Screen mode. Sadly starting with photoshop cs3 adobe removed the ability to access the menu bar or dock in Full Screen mode.

In photoshop 7.cs and cs2 while in Full Screen mode one just had to press Shift+F to see the menu bar and dock and press Shift+F again to hide the menu bar and dock

cs2 Full Screen

cs2 after pressing Shift+F to show the menu bar and dock but still in Full Screen

Add your votes, but seriously, at this point just expect this to be a dead request. The Adobe devs have stopped replying in here, and for all we know, they could be outright ignoring it to retain their "Photoshop's own full screen mode is superior" stance.

My advice is to slowly get used to using Photoshop at around 90 width with Apple's upcoming Stage Manager feature. At the very least, I found it fixes the issue of Photoshop hogging a desktop space so you can tuck away some other apps to drag and drop between without clutter. 

However, Photoshop is so busted that they still haven't even addressed the simple issue of the app snapping to wherever [cursing removed by moderator] it wants when you leave the space and come back in a bit. This either shoves the window about 25% off screen every time on stable macOS, and on the new betas, it shoves the window far enough into the left corner that Stage Manager's featutes can't work properly. Either the sidebar sees the overflow and tucks itself away, or Photoshop goes somewhere so far off that Stage Manager just tucks it back into the off-focus mode by itself. This is the only software I have that has any of these ancient issues, and I highly suspect it's because Adobe keeps insisting on shoving new features into this framework that is way too old to keep up with macOS updates. It will understandably take work, but Adobe needs to shove off other redundantly pointless features and rebuild the app for modern day. Ditch the CS5-6 framework from ages ago, you're not letting people buy a single license anymore, so give us an app that can actually receive updates for the new age.

I don't know why I'm even typing these things anymore. I've tried for 11 years on the full screen button, and I've probably tried for half a decade on the window jumping around issue as well. Adobe just doesn't care. They sucked the money already, and these suggestion forums are a formality at best to find easy features to fulfill enough of their corporate growth to keep focus on other[cursing removed by moderator] like charging huge fees for packages nobody wants, an iPad version that is easily still underbaked and woefully overpriced, etc.

I know Adobe wants to hear this from everyone here, but I'm just going to give up on this. Why keep holding hope and paying for a hopeless chance at this, it's clear they have 0 interest in considering this. I'd be more than happy for someone from Adobe to chime in and prove me wrong here, but I think over a decade is enough proof that they don't care. 

Add my vote...

I need to buy 3 macbooks: one for PS, one for Illustrator and one for other works so I can keep the Dock visible and go through other pages and apps with no issue!

10 years later and... still the same annoying issue with Ps and Ai when coming back to the desktop (the only way to have them in full-screen mode!)

Sometimes the only way to find the resize button is to re-scale the window by dragging it horizontally!!!

That doesn't even solve the base glaring issues of their pretend full screen mode. It just stretches the window to the edges and hides the corners, but it's still a windowed app with all the restrictions and rules of a windowed only app.

For one, you can't use macOS split view in any way with Photoshop. As an app forced with windowed only rules, it also refreshes the viewer window in intervals and will constantly bug out once you open a new image or go off and do something else in another space for a while. Example screenshot:

This [cursing removed by moderator] happens all the time, conveniently tucking the top toolbar into a void you can't click to return the window to the correct spot. If you can pull off an action that makes Photoshop change something in its view window, you can also temporarily return the window back, but a lot of the time, the window tucks away even more and you have nothing to click on.

If you try to combat it by using their fake full screen mode, the above issue doesn't happen as often, but you gain a new issue where the floating toolbars have to reload every single time, flickering on and off and moving the canvas off of where you had left it.

I honestly don't care at this point about the fact that it would take a rebuild of Photoshop to implement this. Apple's out here making crazy fast silicon and drawing more and more creatives towards Mac, and the most well known professional image editing software that costs a mini fortune to retain monthly has been lying for 10+ years in an outdated system, purely out of a sense of superiority and refusal to adapt from the developers.

It's like someone who never cleans their email inbox and sits inefficiently drowning under 10000 emails. Instead of sacrificing the inevitably necessary time to clear out their inbox in favour of better organization moving forward, they just keep saying "well it'd take a lot of effort to do that and my janky band-aid does the job so why bother". Even worse, they occasionally post on their Facebook asking people "should I fix this? Like if you think I should and comment why", then when hundreds of people vote in favour and comment very valid reasons, they either snobbily decline, pretend to look into it, or even just quietly disappear.

For crying out loud Adobe, it's 2022, you're charging users an absurdly inflated monthly cost that forces users to pay into annual plans or other slimy tactics to use your software. The absolute least you can do is pretend to actually work on this. 10+ years of employees being snarky on here, or stating "our team's looking into this" and disappearing, it's ridiculous. Photoshop laughably continues to feel like it was developed in 2008, just absolutely sad.

It's unbelievable that every time you want to run full-screen PS you have to go

System Preferences > Dock > Enable Automatically hide and show the Dock

then after finishing work 

System Preferences > Dock > Disable Automatically hide and show the Dock

We've had this very discussion for over 10 years unfortunately. Despite how complicated it may be (or not, who knows), Adobe's only delaying the modernization of their most popular app and making it harder and harder to carry over their features to the new framework.

Beyond that though, it's been insulting to be a part of this request for over a decade now, getting falsely led by staff that the feature is Under Review and in talks within the Photoshop team. They surface every 6 months to a year if you're lucky, just to post random  [cursing removed by moderator] on why they aren't doing it this year and how they may "consider" it again until the next time they surface with the same response. Being hung to dry over a pivotal workflow that Apple introduced in 2011 while some of Adobe's apps support it just makes me more irritated when I use them conjoined. Lightroom works beautifully in my full screen workflow and proves it is has a big part in the macOS world. Meanwhile, I have grandpa Photoshop either eating up my main desktop, or a different desktop while causing endless annoyances. Toolbars flickering in Photoshop's full screen mode, the window showing up 20% off in the top left corner void every time I return to it, the pop up dialog windows literally messing up my entire ability to use the same dialog box on any of my other apps unless I restart my entire computer, it's horrible. Photoshop doesn't work like this magical end-all solution in the current full screen options, and the sooner Adobe can acknowledge that and start even informing us that the option for macOS native full screen is being worked on, the faster it will feel like an app actually from this decade. Even throaway trash apps from that have no functional benefits taking up a full screen have the option. I just want Adobe to stop PR'ing this[cursing removed by moderator], dropping in to stick some band-aid on the complaints and then slinking into their hole and cover their ears. Tell us straight up: "we're not going to ever do this" so I can stop sitting here like an idiot for 10 years on a dead promise, or let us know what you're thinking on a roadmap.