12 Replies Latest reply: Oct 28, 2010 7:38 AM by peter at knowhowpro RSS

    FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?

    octechwriter Community Member
      How can you exit full screen mode in FM9? the only way I could do it was by closing all of my files, quiting FM, and relaunching FM.

      There seems to be no shortcut key associated with bringing the program out of full-screen mode. If you can see the menu bar, you can't select Standard Screen Mode.

      BTW: There is no documentation of Full Screen in the FM 9 User's Guide.
        • 1. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
          Sheila Carlisle Community Member
          What operating system are you working on?

          I don't have FM9 to check on how the keys might be different from FM8, but can you find anything relating to the screen mode in the .cfg files that are in the install directory \fminit\configui directory?
          • 2. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
            Sheila Carlisle Community Member
            aha -- you'll have to check whether these keys are the same in your version (I have a pre-shipping FM9 version), but it looks like you can go from Full Screen to Standard screen mode. Check the file wincmds.cfg

            Standard screen mode is ESC then "SM" + "s"

            Full screen with UI is ESC then "SM" + "u"
            • 3. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
              octechwriter Community Member
              Thanks for the reply, Sheila.

              I'm running the FM9 trial on Windows XP. I looked through the cmds.cfg and wincmds.cfg files, and I didn't see the commands you specified.

              I tried your suggestion of ESC + SM + s, and it worked. Thanks.

              Such a simple key combination, too. It's a wonder I didn't guess that on my own. :)
              • 4. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
                PulkitJ Adobe Employee
                Right click on the inactive area of FM. In the context menu you will see an item called Toggle Screen Mode. Clicking on this will take you back to the standard view.

                Pulkit
                • 5. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
                  4everJang Community Member

                  In other Adobe applications, there is a Screen Mode submenu in the View menu. The programmers who put the button for switching screen modes into FM9 should have thought a couple of milliseconds before deciding those buttons were sufficient. When the menu bar is hidden, THERE IS NO BUTTON. Relying on escape sequences is something that smells of the ancient past, when we were hacking away in vi on a Unix machine with no graphical user interface. I really hate it when programmers DO NOT THINK TWICE about what they're doing. Also, they never told anyone about this, so it did not get included in the help for FM9, either. It took me about an hour to find out there is no easy way of getting my menu bar back except restarting FM. I do not memorize hundreds of escape sequences, nor am I ever planning on doing that. This feature stinks for FM, anyway. And yes, I am just a little bit angry.

                  • 6. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
                    Jeff_Coatsworth CommunityMVP

                    Right-click and choose Toggle Screen

                    • 7. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
                      peter at knowhowpro Community Member

                      Jang_fishbone wrote:

                       

                      In other Adobe applications, there is a Screen Mode submenu in the View menu. The programmers who put the button for switching screen modes into FM9 should have thought a couple of milliseconds before deciding those buttons were sufficient. When the menu bar is hidden, THERE IS NO BUTTON. Relying on escape sequences is something that smells of the ancient past, when we were hacking away in vi on a Unix machine with no graphical user interface. I really hate it when programmers DO NOT THINK TWICE about what they're doing. Also, they never told anyone about this, so it did not get included in the help for FM9, either. It took me about an hour to find out there is no easy way of getting my menu bar back except restarting FM. I do not memorize hundreds of escape sequences, nor am I ever planning on doing that. This feature stinks for FM, anyway. And yes, I am just a little bit angry.

                      After lots of failed searches through FrameMaker 9 Help, it took me a long time to come up with this Google search term: "exit framemaker 9 full screen mode" without quotes.

                       

                      The first link in the result is:

                       

                      http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FrameMaker/9.0/Using/WSb630443cfa66631d35e59609122746239b7-800 0.html

                       

                      The topic title is "Tips on working with the new interface."

                       

                      This [EDIT] lack of proper TOC and index entries, and failed searches for terms like "full screen" and "full-screen,"[/EDIT] is a documentation bug. Please file formal doc bug reports at: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

                       

                      HTH

                       

                      Regards,

                       

                      Peter

                      _______________________

                      Peter Gold

                      KnowHow ProServices

                       

                      Message was edited by: peter at knowhowpro

                      • 8. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
                        Jeff_Coatsworth CommunityMVP

                        I found it right away by searching on "full screen" in the FM9 help. If you think there's a documentation issue, use the Comment feature in the Help to improve it.

                        • 9. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
                          4everJang Community Member

                          Thanks for the tips. Right-clicking is a nice one, since it depends where you click and there is no intuitive guidance on that. I do not think that this can be viewed as purely a documentation issue. It is a design issue: if there is an option to change screen modes, it should be included in the View menu, just like it was done in Photoshop. That is the obvious location where you would go look for it. And even in Full Screen Mode, using the Alt key brings up the menus, so there is an easy escape without having to consult the help files or forums to found out hidden tricks. As technical authors, we should not accept the blame when it is shoved on our plates by user interface designers who obviously made a mistake here. Yes, it should also have been included in the documentation but that is not the only action that should be taken.

                           

                          Another option of course is to take the feature out of FrameMaker altogether. Why would I want to enter Full Screen Mode in an editor, anyway? I know I did, as I was checking out features that I had not seen before. But what's the point of this feature for this program ?

                          • 10. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
                            peter at knowhowpro Community Member

                            Jeff_Coatsworth wrote:

                             

                            I found it right away by searching on "full screen" in the FM9 help. If you think there's a documentation issue, use the Comment feature in the Help to improve it.

                            Because I run FM using Parallels on my Mac, when I don't need it, I quit Windows, to get maximum Mac performance. So, when I need to look up a FM qustion, I often search the downloaded local PDF FM manual, which failed my searches. The successful Google search I suggested did, indeed, find the term in the online FM help.

                             

                            The topic says to right-click outside the text area.

                             

                            IMO, nothing in any computing environment is "intuitive." Many things that may seem intuitive, are simply familiar, from one's past experience.

                            Doc bugs should be filed against the PDF version. It's questionable whether the PDF will be updated, but always worth reporting the problem.

                             

                            Regards,

                             

                            Peter

                            _______________________

                            Peter Gold

                            KnowHow ProServices

                            • 11. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
                              Mike Wickham Community Member

                              I agree that it would be good to put the toggles in the View menu. You're

                              not the first to have trouble finding the controls for these features. You

                              can file bug reports and feature requests at the link below. The current

                              FrameMaker team has been very good about considering such posts.

                               

                              https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

                              • 12. Re: FM9: Exiting Full Screen Mode?
                                peter at knowhowpro Community Member

                                Jang_fishbone wrote:

                                 

                                Thanks for the tips. Right-clicking is a nice one, since it depends where you click and there is no intuitive guidance on that. I do not think that this can be viewed as purely a documentation issue. It is a design issue: if there is an option to change screen modes, it should be included in the View menu, just like it was done in Photoshop. That is the obvious location where you would go look for it. And even in Full Screen Mode, using the Alt key brings up the menus, so there is an easy escape without having to consult the help files or forums to found out hidden tricks. As technical authors, we should not accept the blame when it is shoved on our plates by user interface designers who obviously made a mistake here. Yes, it should also have been included in the documentation but that is not the only action that should be taken.

                                 

                                Another option of course is to take the feature out of FrameMaker altogether. Why would I want to enter Full Screen Mode in an editor, anyway? I know I did, as I was checking out features that I had not seen before. But what's the point of this feature for this program ?

                                I agree that it's not only a doc bug, but an UI design bug. Consider filing a report to help improve the next release.

                                 

                                If you're only using FM as a text editor, you're losing out on its visual layout abilities.

                                 

                                Full-screen viewing enlarges the useful work area. Users who are comfortable working with keystroke shortcuts may prefer both the increased space, and decreased clutter.

                                 

                                Some space-pinching practices that can benefit from more space include viewing a document's two-up page spreads, and tiling multiple documents. For example, using a narrowed TOC, index, or generated list of cross-references adjacent to a wider document page, to navigate through documents, "hyper-clicking" (Ctrl+Alt+Click) in the generated document and moving the insertion point to the linked destination, while not losing sight of the jumping-off-point.

                                 

                                 

                                HTH

                                 

                                Regards,

                                 

                                Peter

                                _______________________

                                Peter Gold

                                KnowHow ProServices