Lights Out Mode exits when context windows appears

[Radim5EBC]

Scenario 1

In Lights Out Mode (LOM): develop settings changed, click on next photo, click on "Previous", settings applied, you are still in LOM.

This is expected behavior.

Scenario 2

In LOM: Develop settings changed, ctrl + shift + C, new window appearing -> exiting LOM.

This is not expected behavior.

Scenario 3

Develop settings changed, ctrl + shift + C, selecting whatever you want except AI driven masks, entering LOM, clicking on next photo (which has no masks), ctrl + shift + V, settings applied, you are still in LOM.

This is expected behavior.

Scenario 4

Develop settings changed, ctrl + shift + C, selecting AI driven masks, entering LOM, clicking on next photo (with no masks), ctrl + shift + V, new window telling me updating AI settings will take time -> exiting LOM

This is not expected behavior.

Scenario 5

Develop settings changed, ctrl + shift + C, selecting any masks, entering LOM, clicking on next photo (which already has some masks applied), ctrl + shift + V, new window asking if I want to replace or merge masks -> exiting LOM

This is not expected behavior.

TLDR

It looks like rendering new window, when in LOM exits LOM.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

The engineers have reviewed this post and verified that the software is behaving as designed. Note the default behavior does vary between Mac and Windows. 

[Radim5EBC]

Hello Rikk,

so is there a way, how to stay in LOM during developing all the time? (Windows)

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Any action that necessitates a dialog to be exposed is going to cause the behavior. If you can find a way to avoid the dialog (e.g. headless operation) it would be to your advantage. Unfortunately, not all operations are available to operate without a dialog. 

[Radim5EBC]

Anyway, since this is not viewed as a bug and I see few upvoters interested, I will share my workaround as a good OP.

So there is an 3th party software called PureRef (highly recommend) which can be used exactly for what I'm missing here. I can put 4 rectangles over LR, with just black image, set opacity and disable mouse interactions. Unfortunately this doesn't work for LR in fullscreen. But otherwise it looks exactly as the LOM, even more customizable, as I can set different opacity of individual panels. That allows me to focus more on picture and don't be distracted by LR gui. Absolutely great experience and I wish this was possible just with LR.