P: Alt-Tab once keeps me in Lightroom Classic

[dj_paige]

• Lightroom Classic 12.3 (and all previous versions of LrC while running Windows 11, as far as I can remember)
• Windows 11 (can't remember if it did this in Windows 10)

Let's suppose I have only two applications open, Microsoft Word and my web browser. In windows, when I press Alt-Tab, I switch from one application to the other. If have three applications open, such as Word, Web Browser and E-mail program, Alt-Tab lets me move to the 2nd app and Alt-Tab twice lets me move to the 3rd app. All as expected.

But if one of those applications open is Lightroom Classic, then Alt-Tab once keeps me in Lightroom Classic. Not expected. I have to Alt-Tab twice to move to the next application that is open. Not expected, and annoying.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Is there a way to fix this so Alt-Tab when I am in Lightroom Classic works as with any other application? Is this a bug?

[johnrellis]

Another person reported that the Keywording panel was a cause of the problem for them:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-alt-tab-once-keeps-me-in-lightroom-cl...

Unfortunately, the issue still occurs for me regardless of the state of the Keywording panel. But there's probably something there about how LR is handling the Alt key.

[johnrellis]

I tried my other Windows 11 computer and observe different results:

- In Library, when Keywording is open, Alt Tab works correctly when the Keyword Set subpanel is closed, incorrectly when it is open.

- In Develop, Alt Tab works correctly when the entire right column is closed, incorrectly when it is open, regardless of which panels are showing.

- In Develop, Alt Tab works correctly when the right column is open but all the panels are hidden (right-click Cusotme Develop Panel); it works incorrectly when at least one panel is showing.

I think it's pretty clear that if a panel has Alt shortcuts and is showing, then Alt Tab works incorrectly. (Every panel in Develop has Alt shortcuts.)

Here's another issue where LR and Windows don't play nicely together with Alt shortcuts:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/error-sound-when-doing-alt-adjustments/...

[jordanv312650]

I updated to Win 11 this week and immediately this problem occurred. 

One thing that I see that I haven't spotted anyone else mention is when the alt+tab dialog/overlay pops up, for a split second it only displays the Lightroom thumbnail. (the same way it would if Lightroom was the only program open.)

This leads me to believe it's not necessarily an issue of registering the input and more an issue of when Lightroom is selected something is causing Windows/explorer to kind of "forget" there are other applications running.


Would love to hear a progress report from Adobe and some practical next steps for how we can get this addressed because it's clearly an issue whether they can replicate it or not and to simply say "It's not broken for me" and providing no path forward is extremely poor form.

[dj_paige]

@jordanv312650 do you mean Lightroom Classic or do you mean Lightroom?