P: Support for native full-screen mode on macOS

[hijax_pl]

I must say that full screen apps is a wonderful idea. I can start in such a way some of the apple apps (safari, imail, numbers) - I like switching between them. It will be desirable to enable this option for Ligtroom & Photoshop (both CS and Elements) to behave in similar way under new Mission Control stuff...

[bradengunem]

I would also very much like this feature.

[laradar]

Since Lion is now a few months old, and Lightroom is coming out with a brand new version, it would be great to have Lightroom support full-screen apps in Lion. The Lightroom full-screen feature currently isn't able to take advantage of quickly switching between full-screen apps, which is a HUGE negative. Right now it's the only feature of Aperture that would force me to go back.

[TheKnightWhoSaysNi]

Lightroom should have a true "Full Screen" mode. No borders of any kind.
I should be able to use 100% of my screen to see my photos.
There is no need for borders. The panels could still be accessed by moving the pointer to the edge of the screen.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I agree. I am using the Lightroom 4 trial, and one of the main things holding me back from purchase is the lack of native Lion full screen support. A company as large as Adobe should be able to add these kinds of features fairly quickly 😞 Here's to hoping for support in 4.1!

I also agree with Roberto. While the black borders with arrows for showing and hiding the panels makes sense for a beginner user, it should be an option to turn this off when in full screen mode. I wish I had that screen real estate for my pictures!

[dwarfland]

agreed. with Lion out for half a year now, i think it's really ridiculous for Lightroom 4 to ship now without proper ful screen support. imho, it shows a lack of respect for the platform.

[Stephen Shankland]

I'm not craving this feature, but I suspect it will be the task-switching interface of the future for OS X. Perhaps even someday the menu bar will disappear, as on iOS. Windows 8 is getting more full-screen-friendly, too.

[Gaerraty]

I must say I was really disappointed today launching Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta and not seeing Lion fullscreen icon...

[dwarfland]

indeed. starting to see a system here... 😞

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Expecting native OSX Lion features features like fullscreen and autosave/versions in Photoshop cs6.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I can see how some people may not use full screen apps or mission control, but as a full-time programmer I have found it to really useful to organize my desktops and open applications with these features. Now that I'm used to full screen apps and mission control, I can't stand when an app doesn't support these OS features. Adobe should at least offer it as an option for Lion users who do utilize these features.

[Guest]

I have always had strange issues using any screen mode of Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign with Mission Control, and previously Expose/Spaces. Having true OS X Fullscreen support would be fantastic for those of us who do include MC in our workflow.

At the risk of being "that guy" who knows nothing about programming and says "It should be so easy to do this!" – I do think extending the current "Application Frame" mode would be the most appropriate option for full screen mode, it already performs (expanded to the full screen size) much like Native Fullscreen apps in Lion, but would be made perfect by playing nice with Mission Control.

[Guest]

Another thought occurred to me. Even for the most masterful of Photoshop users much of the tools in Photoshop are still accessed from the menubar, and in fullscreen mode this is hidden until your cursor moves to the top of the screen.

I imagine for a Photoshop Fullscreen mode to be truly beneficial the functions from the menubar would need to be moved into the application window itself. This might be a major deterrent to this feature's development.

[Gaerraty]

I already posted more detailed message on Adobe's Photoshop CS6 forums:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4283975. But I'll post it here too.

I was very disappointed that Photoshop CS6 Beta doesn't have Lion fullscreen mode support. When Lion was launched I was actually foolish enough to think that all Adobe CS5.5 apps will have update within a month to support Lion fullscreen mode. Photoshop's full-screen mode just doesn't function the way I want after I fell in love with Apple's implementation.

When in "Standard Screen Mode" Dock is visible and hiding it isn't solution because I want to see it when on desktop space. And the problem got more momemtum when I switched over to 16:9 screen from 16:10 screen...
When in "Fullscreen Mode with Menubar" the same Dock-problem persists.
When in "Fullscreen Mode" (and press Tab-key to get panels visible), which is quite close to Apple's fullscreen mode, another problem appears – menubar is unaccessible, thus making this mode unusable.

The crude solution is to manually hide Dock everytime I use CS apps for extented time, which is – needless to say – frustrating.

When using multiple CS apps Lion's fullscreen mode would automatically make own desktops for each of them, saving effort to manually make desktops and drag apps into them (Mission Control).

The funny thing is that Lightroom 3 has samekind of fullscreen modes but "true" fullscreen mode which hides Dock, keeps menubar also accessible unlike Photoshop.

Hopefully more Lion features (and Mountain Lion) will come to CS6 apps.

[jeep57]

You don't have Control-F2 enabled (focus on menu)?
Works in fullscreen mode with cs5.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

"masterful" users rarely use the menubar, just shortcut keys.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I think native OS X Lion/Mountain Lion full screen support is a must for Adobe CS6 apps. The way native full screen apps behave, the way you can swipe between them and re-organize them, while still leaving me a "desktop" to do miscellaneous tasks on, has me trained to expect all good software to support this workflow.

Currently when I run an Adobe app, it puts a snag in my workflow, and is in general unpleasant to use compared with other software.

Please implement this in your CS6 apps.

[Gaerraty]

I just cannot get menu bar to show up in "Fullscreen mode" in CS5.1 or CS6. In Lightroom 3 menu bar shows up.

[Gaerraty]

I hope that you don't *only* design Photoshop for masterful users. 🙂

[lmabe10]

I think OS X Lion full screen mode would absolutely be the BEST upgrade feature in my opinion. After using the Beta I am very pleased to see many improvements, however, as many users have mentioned before, my workflow gets screwed up when I throw an Adobe application into the mix. I eventually quit using Dreamweaver for this reason, but there is really no alternative to Photoshop. Therefore, I am excited for the possibility of have a fullscreen version with the impending full release of CS6.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

YES, absolutely yes. I also don't understand the workings of the software, but Adobe seems to be switching to the Application Frame-type windows for all CS6 applications, and it seems like it would (theoretically) be trivial to add fullscreen to the application frame (obviously with the older panel-based interface, this would have been more difficult). This should have been one of the "just do it" features from the minute Lion was introduced.

Working on a laptop, the ability to rapidly swipe between applications is a HUGE time saver, and while I can make a new desktop and put Photoshop there, it invariably ends up getting cluttered with other application windows.

[J453]

I thought I'd take a moment to outline OS X's fullscreen mode in relation to Photoshop's Full Screen Modes and explain why we stuck with our Full Screen Mode:

Here's the short story: If we replace Photoshop's Full Screen mode with the native 10.7 full screen mode, then our users will loose the following functionality:

• 
  
• The ability to use multiple displays while in fullscreen mode
• 
  
• The ability to switch between different document windows while in fullscreen mode
  

This in not something our long time users have said they want to give up.

That said, it's possible that Apple may change the full screen mode in OS X in the future to include this functionality in the future – and we'll continue to evaluate if it meets all our users needs.

Here's the longer story with more details:

Photoshop's full screen model is a per display mode. This means that in multi-displays configurations, some displays may be in Full Screen Mode while others are not. Photoshop's full screen display can can also contain one or more document windows. When a display is in Full Screen Mode, then all document-windows on that display will be full screen when they are brought forward. Photoshop's model has two full screen modes: Full Screen with UI (including the OSX menu bar) and Full Screen without UI (in this mode the OSX menu bar is hidden).

The native full screen implementation in OS X 10.7 is a single display mode. When you enter fullscreen mode on a given display, then all other displays become dark (and windows are hidden on dark displays). Dark displays can contain UI for the active application (but not documents).

When you enter the OSX fullscreen mode, then a new (temporary) Space is created for the fullscreen window. Only a single document window lives in this new Space. This means that you cannot switch between different document windows while in fullscreen mode (command-tilde does nothing).

[VorteXLP]

@Jeffrey: Why not implement both? Icon in the top-right will activate Apple's fullscreen mode, pressing F activates Photoshop's own?

[VorteXLP]

@Jeffrey: Why not implement both? Icon in the top-right will activate Apple's fullscreen mode, pressing F activates Photoshop's own?

[Guest]

Jeffrey, thanks for the response.

The multi-display problem would be annoying, but in regards to the OS X Fullscreen mode only allowing a single document window: don't multiple documents in tabs get treated as a single document window, could entering OS X Full screen mode force all the open documents into tabs?

As a sidenote, have their been some improvements to the document tabbing system, I find myself using it a lot more than I used to? I used to find it annoying but somehow it seems more usable now. (maybe it psycho-semantic)

[Guest]

I never buy this thinking, its like Photoshop snobbery. There are a lot of things that are not easily accessible with the keyboard even with custom shortcuts.