Can't Minimize Lightroom 4 Window?

[nesotericsm1le]

I used to be able to minimize the Lightroom 4 window to the dock on my Mac, but now the minimize button's greyed out. I hit F a couple times and cycled through the different views but this hasn't restored the minimize function, neither has restarting Lightroom. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

[BartonGarrett256]

I had to go to cntrl alt delete and pull up the task manager, when I did that it returned to normal.  The usual fix, entering 'F' which is easy to remember for reasons I can't describe on a family show, did not fix it. Hitting F toggled between two almost identically useless screens, or double imposed the image data onto the image.  I'm very surprised they shipped the fifth release of this SW with a bug this serious in it. 

Shift F, cntrl F, and lots of permutations of same did nothing.

The other (well not the only) thing that absolutely irritates me to no end is seeing the tools menu drop off in develop if my cursor gets anywhere close to the little triangle on the right. That is beyond irritating to me. 

[Brett N]

The F key just goes into "Full Screen with Preview" mode. Shift+F cycles through the three Full Screen Modes: Normal, Full Screen with Menu Bar, and Full Screen. You can see which mode you are currently in or "manually" switch between them by going to (while the menus are displayed) Window > Screen Mode.

If your panels are disappearing as you describe, then you are not in one of the default display modes. Try right-clicking the arrow icon and see which mode that panel is in. The default mode is "Manual", but it sounds like you have one of the "Auto..." modes engaged.

[BartonGarrett256]

That is what is supposed to do, but not what my system did.  It has a bug, it would not toggle through all three modes, it double displayed, with an offset, the image meta data.   And would not display the menu bar in rotation.  All software ships with bugs, this is one of LR's. Adobe makes powerful software, but their UI is  not so user friendly, nor consistent from app to app, I assume it's because a lot their products are built by other then acquired.  They are fortunate to have users do most of their tech support for free.

[Brett N]

If this were a bug, everyone would encounter it. The description of the behavior sounds like there is a conflict with your video card. When is the last time you downloaded the latest drivers from your video card manufacturer.

[BartonGarrett256]

Ha!  That's a good one Bret!  It's only a bug if everyone encounters it.   Let me write that down.  As a former product manager and an engineer I can say if a developer brought that observation to a bug meeting it would add a moment of laughter to the day.   It does, however, remind me to never, ever, ever upgrade Adobe applications at release.

[Brett N]

I'm defining a bug as a flaw in the application code that causes it to behave in an unexpected way. Such a flaw would be present in all copies of the same version of the software. Thus, all people using the same version of the software would have the same bug present and all people would experience the bug. Are you defining a bug in some other fashion where a bug could be present for some people but not others?

[BartonGarrett256]

That is a definition of bugs from the 1960s.   In the world I live in not everyone uses the same computer.  I don't mean same model of computer I mean THE same computer.  What you say won't even work for the same computer.  There are bugs that have caused deaths caused by how fast the data is entered into a computer. Google 'Therac-25'.

Your software has to work on all the computers that it can be installed on. With all the hard drives, memory and plug ins and video cards and OS available.   Or you have to warn us it may not. I used to joke you need smarter customers, but even that won't help you. 

  I'm a video editor, the Pr CC 2015 release is buggy software.  It has fatal bugs for many editors, more so on Macs, but also for Windows users.  Either it wasn't properly tested or someone rolled the dice to get all the packages out on the same day, but regardless it is not performing well for many editors I know.  Sophisticated users, professionals with $7000 purpose built computers. Missing deadlines, income and losing customers.  Ouch. It makes us cranky.  

If I have a project to get out and Lr will not let me export images into Pr or Ae and I have to do a laborious work around and miss my deadline or burn a day resolving it I'm going to be upset. Especially if it did not do that before I upgraded to the latest release, one seemingly designed mostly to get me to buy Adobe stock images. 

[dave361]

This is the best answer - look at the window options as you state - normal gets back the stop lights

[akar89705812]

Alas I was hitting "F" til I thought I would break Keyboard. Thank you andrew dyer. I hit "Shift F" simultaneously and bingo, works.

[Captivating_Dolphin01AC]

Hi just now had the same problem on the newest version of LR - just like that there were no red/green/yellow buttons and window would not resize. I am so glad to have found this discussion and your answer - the shift-F key worked - had to do it twice. Thank you!!

[Captivating_Dolphin01AC]

Hi just had the same problem on the newest version of LR - just like that there were no red/green/yellow buttons and window would not resize. I am so glad to have found this discussion - the shift-F key worked - had to do it twice. Thank you!!

[tadmint]

Try going to Window > Screen Mode > Normal.