Unable to "merge all windows" after I went into "separated mode"

[KipV]

I needed to go into separated mode today and was surprised to find that I couldn't get back to the normal view later. If I select merge under the window menu the checkmark remains on separated mode. Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug? I don't use separated mode enough to know if this behavior is unusual. Seems like it should just snap back into the view that is just windows in front of a blank background rather then seeing all my other app windows behind me.

[KipV]

I didn't realize that clicking "separated mode" again would bring all the panels back together. It took me a couple of days to figure that out. I thought that merge and seperate where two opposing functions.

[IdahoSAM]

I also had this same issue, though it didn't take me days to figure it out thanks to the post by KipV.

[nosillacast]

Oh good grief! That fixed my problem but what a DUMB interface to have to do that!  Why the heck doesn't "merge all windows" put us back whole?  Thanks KipV for sharing the answer.

[R C-R]

26 minutes ago, nosillacast said:

Why the heck doesn't "merge all windows" put us back whole?

If by "back whole" you mean normal, non-separated windows node, it is because Merge All Windows & the separated/normal window view mode do two different things.

When you are in normal window view mode, all open documents share one workspace window; they are in separate tabs & you can switch between them by clicking on their tabs. For this reason Merge All Windows is disabled because there is just one workspace window.

When you are in Separated Mode on a Mac, each document can have its own individual workspace window. Merge All Windows is enabled in Separated Mode so you can quickly merge all open document windows into one tabbed workspace window, similar to normal window mode (except that the toolbars remain floating instead of being attached to the workspace window in normal window view mode).

[nosillacast]

Sorry I missed this response - great explanation R C-R. Appreciate you taking the time to clarify things for me.

[GraphicDesigner]

On 6/27/2017 at 7:42 PM, KipV said:

I didn't realize that clicking "separated mode" again would bring all the panels back together. It took me a couple of days to figure that out. I thought that merge and seperate where two opposing functions.

Thanks, took me a fair bit of googling until I came to this a

[KipV]

11 hours ago, GraphicDesigner said:

Thanks, took me a fair bit of googling until I came to this a

I wonder if they have made this function easier to do by this point?

[kidmai]

Lol, I brute force using split interface for almost a week and genuinely thought my installation is malfunction until I bother to google for this post.

 

Good explanation above. Still, two features where one called 'separate...' and another called 'merge...' that do completely different thing with no relation to each other should not be placed next to each other with nothing in-between them. At Least there should be a separator UI element between them