Floating menus going off screen when connect with external monitor on Windows 11 and CC 18.5

[Elton24228302rp4e]

I'm having issues with all floating menus like this, this is the top right of my screen. When clicked on stroke menu for instance, the floating goes off the screen and I can't rearrange it. Is there any fix to this. Only happens when using dual monitors.

<Title renamed by moderator>

[HARSHIKA_VERMA]

Hi @Elton24228302rp4e,

Thank you for taking the time to reach out and report the issue. To assist us in investigating the issue further, could you kindly provide a screen recording that demonstrates the problem? Additionally, we would greatly appreciate it if you could share the details of your operating system, including any information about your external monitor setup. It would also be helpful to know the specific version of InDesign installed on your machine, as this will allow us to escalate the issue appropriately.

We assume that the issue appears to be related to misalignments between the laptop and monitor, particularly when the resolutions and alignments differ. If the resolution and alignment settings are the same, the issue does not occur.

Rest assured that we are committed to providing the best assistance possible.

Thanks,

Harshika

[Elton24228302rp4e]

Hello Harshika. Sorry for the delay... Yeah both monitors are indeed different in size and resolution. 

btw, I don't know why change the title to "macOS on InDesign 18.3" since I'm not using either of them. I'm using Windows 11 and CC 18.5

[Nick31978105guh7]

Hi Harshika

I suffer the same problems and am on MacOS (13.4.1) and Indesign 18.5, so it's not just Windows.

The problem seems not so much about misalignments of monitors, as it is to do with Adobe apps not doing windowing correctly on MacOS at all. My monitors are not the same size/resolution, but they shouldn't need to be. Other apps will switch monitors and Spaces quite happily, and also have a menu bar item for moving a window to another display, which none of the Adobe apps have and which I assume is part of the same problem.

This isn't just an occasional annoyance. _Every time_ my Mac goes to sleep I come back to Indesign having moved itself back to my built-in display from the external monitor, positioned with menus offscreen, and the Book panel with its tab inaccessible off the top/right of the display. I have to move the main application window manually back to the external monitor, then reset the Workspace which will pull the panels back to the external monitor per the Workspace setting, with the exception of the Book panel which is impossible to retrieve. For that, all you can do is select it from the Window menu, which brings up the Don't Save/Cancel/Save dialog, essentially forcing you to save/close/reopen the book file every time.

For what it's worth, my monitors are arranged vertically rather than horizontally, and the external 4K display which I want to use for Indesign is above a 14" Retina display, the internal display is set as the primary display. But different-sized displays and arrangements is a red herring really, this is a bug caused by Adobe going off-piste with its window management.

It would be great if Adobe could come up with some kind of workaround for the Book panel, or just get it to be as fixed as any other panel so it can be part of a Workspace, as this is such a long-standing bug. But really what is needed is a rewrite of windowing so it behaves correctly with the system, and the Adobe "Application Frame" sits at the root of the problem.

Nick

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I'll just note that I've run Adobe apps on a series of Windows systems, all with multiple and mismatched-res monitors, for a very long time and never experienced any of the issues reported with such combinations. The one thing I have rarely done, other than with client/employer systems, is use a laptop-based setup that's docked and undocked from secondary monitors (but I've had no trouble with those, eitther).

So my assessment is that it's nothing fundamentally wrong with ID or other CC apps' desktop management, but a conflict with systems that, for one software or setup reason, are 'trying too hard' to manage desktop elements. I wouldn't be surprised if it can be narrowed down to a particular brand of system or narrow stripe of video subsystem/driver.

The Book pane thing is a real pane, though. 🙂

[Nick31978105guh7]

It's true that different setups may exhibit different behaviour, you only mentioned Windows systems so not sure if you have any experience on Macs which are generally much more consistent (external support for Retina display settings notwithstanding). Adobe app functionality with multiple monitors does come up on forums though, I've seen it particularly for Premiere where you really want a working multiple monitor workspace most of the time. I don't use PP enough to worry about it but I believe there has at least been a bit of progress there.

Adobe has gone outside the norm with its Application Frame on MacOS, however, and a simple comparison with e.g. Microsoft Excel will show the problem it causes straight away. I can have 10 different Excel documents open in 10 different displays or Spaces (virtual displays), and when I go to any of them I have essentially Excel running in front of me – I can even make customisations equivalent to changing Workspace on one of those without affecting the others. If you have two indd docs open (or psd files etc) you can 'float' one or both and move one or both to another display. On MacOS at least, the Indesign document window is now limited to showing just the rulers and the bottom line of controls (magnification, page selector, etc) but the application is left behind on the original monitor. You get the menubar controls on each window as you make it active, but none of the panels. You can move panels to the other displays, but can't have more than one instance of any panel in order to duplicate panels to each display. Everything is essentially tied to a single Application Frame, which is designed to exist in one display.

I don't really remember exactly when but suspect it was around CS2/CS3, so more than 15 years ago, the Adobe app UIs for Mac and Windows really began to converge. I suspect behind the scenes Adobe wanted to have more shared codebase, which makes sense. At that time, most people probably only worked on one monitor so having a single Application Frame that Adobe could control separately from the OS frameworks was ok. As working with multiple displays has become more the norm than the exception, this approach has not kept up. I don't know if it is better on Windows compared to MacOS, but as Apple brings enhancements to virtual displays (Spaces) and managed multi-app/doc workspaces (Stage Manager), the Adobe apps will just not be able to take advantage of them, which is a shame.

I don't want this to go off-topic, but the OP is talking about behaviour when using multiple displays, and I have also seen similar issues over generations of hardware and software. That certain things work in certain ways with multiple displays is not in question, but there are some fundamental limitations that make troubleshooting problems that do come up more difficult than they ought to be, and probably end up with workarounds like the ones I described in my earlier post.

Nick

[Barb Binder]

Hi Elton:

Is it important to you that some or all of the panels are floating? Is there any reason not to dock them? If you're not sure how we can certainly give a hand.

My preferred workflow is to set up the panels the way I like them, docked on both side of the screen and then I save that workspace using Window >Workspace > New Workspace. This allows me to maximize my window and reset my workspace when I move from one display to the other, so that everything is exactly where I want it. Nothing is going to float off screen if it is docked.

~Barb

[Nick31978105guh7]

Hi Barb, this works for panels generally, except a long-standing bug where the Books panel is not treated like other panels and is not included in the Workspace definition. It will appear undocked every time you restart Indesign and open a book.

Nick

[Elton24228302rp4e]

Hey Barb.

Yeah, almost every float window that pops up from the side bar does that, I either have to use it windowed or manually "unanchor" the entire properties sidebar to the middle of the screen. Doing that works. But I still don't know why its doing that. If feels like the program doesn't recognizes the screen border when doing some actions. Seems like the ui/ux responsive team didn't planned that right.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Double check your monitor setup (right click on desktop, Display) to make sure your monitor sizeresolutions are correct and you have them in approximately the matching configuration. It's low probability but worth checking.

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Nick31978105guh7:

That is true. Books and the original libraries need to be docked each time you open them. When I open either, I immediately dock them and they stay until I close them, even with Window resizing.

I've never had either open off my screen though where I can't get to them. Is that happening to you?

~Barb