fullscreen multiwindow OS X bug?

[René J.V. Bertin]

On Thursday April 20 2017 23:20:33 db wrote:

> > Same happens with a Qt-based console emulator so this is not a bug in Terminal.app .
> 
> I couldn't reproduce it on 10.8.5. Have you tried switching between the windows using the Window menu or ⌘1, ⌘2, etc?

Ah, thanks, so this appears to be a regression introduced with 10.9.x . Does 10.8 already have the 2 different Spaces (Mission Control) modes?

To answer your question: yes, I did try the Window menu as well as the "show all windows" option under the Dock tile. Something does appear to change when I select the "MIA" window, but it doesn't reappear. I can have faith though and use Command-W to close the window after selecting it that way.

FWIW, as can be expected Safari is affected too.

I just notice that after selecting the MIA window, the fullscreen menu item reads "Exit Full Screen". IOW, the window remained in fullscreen mode and I can retrieve the window via that menu item.

That suggests a partial explanation. Apple uses a temporary Space to provide the fullscreen environment, apparently one for each window made fullscreen. Opening a new window and making it fullscreen switches to that window's Space and when you then exit fullscreen mode there is no way to go back to the other fullscreen window's Space.
That's confirmed when you switch to a different app when in fullscreen mode; there's no way to go back to that fullscreen window. Even if I set "when switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application".

All this doesn't happen when you use a basic fullscreen implementation that removes window decoration (titlebar, frame etc) and resizes the window to cover the full screen. Much faster, too, and you get to keep access to all other screens. But, apparently that's "non-platform behaviour" ...

R.