How to restore my extra windows in PT8? (solved)

Question

My normal established way of working is to have some six+ text-windows in PT over two physical screens, stored as a text-combination. Always in “unstacked” mode.

Now often I want to bring up an extra window for a quick lookup and do not want to re-arrange my entire set-up (takes rather too long). So I bring them up as a “floating” window above my other texts. This is working very well.

Problem: I might know that in a few moments, I will need this extra window again (briefly), so rather than closing this ressource, I minimize it. Working well.

But how to “restore” my extra window, so that it will jump from “minimised” back to its original size and position please? I click on > menu > Window and I can see my extra window in the list, but I find no way of restoring.

And most of the windows that I minimize in PT8 go into hiding somewhere random(?) either off-screen(?) or behind some other window, and sometimes behind(!) my Windows task-bar bottom-left but not consistently in the same place. So I do not find a regular way of even showing me the minimized window, otherwise I could myself click on the middle-icon for “restore”.

This might sound like a trivial detail to you, but if I find a way of doing this, then it would safe a lot of time and make me very happy.

Answer 1

If you are able, I would highly recommend using Paratext 9. As anon848905 said, it handles these types of issues much better.

• Managing multiple windows and windows on multiple monitors is built in to Paratext 9, and when you save a layout, it remembers all of the windows that were open on each screen.
• The “auto-hide” feature may also be helpful for briefly looking at another resource.
• “Tabs” can also be used to have a resource available with a simple click, but not have the resource take up any extra space.
• Anything can be turned into a “floating window” (instead of only certain windows).

You can see these videos for more examples of how those features could be useful for you:

Windows in Paratext 9 - Part 1

Windows in Paratext 9 - Part 2

In Him,

james_post

Comments

Thank you james_post. Videos are not my preferred mode of documentation and they rarely come with transcripts or keywords for searching of details. I am confident, that I can figure out PT9 just fine, once we are ready for it:

I keep getting more and more nudges to move this project to PT9. We are not against PT9 but when it was initially presented, the reasons for the move were not compelling, and certainly not worth the risk and effort for yet another move, become moving from PT7 to PT8 had been painful. I remember that PT9 was initially presented as “another nice option for a certain type of user”. And now I am getting vibes like “users of PT8 are lagging behind”.

Now where please is the official site that lists the status of PT8 and PT9 and is giving a good information basis for projects considering the move? I have been overseas and stuck by covid, so presently we are still catching up with house-keeping etc. and are not ready for a move. But we would like to understand and see the full picture so that we can better plan this year or this term. Thank you.

Answer 2

Are you using Paratext 8? In Paratext 9.1 which I am using, such hidden windows are restored in two ways. Either go to the overall menu and click on the resoruce as it should be listed in the Windows column. I find it a bit faster to move my cursor down to the bottom line of my screen where I have the Paratext icon. With the cursor there, the hidden windows will show after 1-2 seconds and I can then click on the window I want to restore.
What happens to some other restored windows depends on whether they are set to always be on top or not by way of the little black thumbnail.

Comments

Iver+Larsen:

Are you using Paratext 8

Yes, I ɖo use PT8, even the heading of my question/post does say so.

Answer 3

I believe I just found a solution:

ALT + W to bring up the windows menu in PT8

then hit the shown shortcut for the ressource I want (for example 7 for RSV)

(I still cannot see that minimized sub-window, but now it has got the focus)

Now ALT + SPACE (false sub-window-menu shows up top-left) and now RIGHT-ARROW

(Now the sub-window-menu for my minimized ressource becomes visible and the option “restore” is already pre-selected)

So ENTER will bring it up to its previous position and size.

This sounds clumsy, but I believe - as it is logical to me - I can do this with several such “extra-windows” in about one or two seconds each (formula PT8 pitstop).

Comments

anon334662, glad you found a solution to your issue with PT8. This is something that PT9 handles much better.

Answer 4

Those that don’t prefer video might find this link helpful.
https://lingtran.net/ParatextTP
There you can find documentation for most of the things that have changed in PT9.

In my area, we are still working on getting translations teams to use PT9, but all of our consultants and administrators are using it already, for most of the reasons james_post mentioned. My impression is that all of the serious bugs have been ironed out, so it is a good time to move. But ‘move’ might be the wrong word, since there is no need to do a conversion or change the project like the move from PT7. All that needs to change is for users to have PT9 installed on their machines and to receive a little training. And if you want to use PT9 while others in the team use PT8, that works too. The window behavior in PT9 is so much better for 2 screens and a multitude of windows.

Answer 5

You’re welcome anon334662, and thank you Stephen+Katt for your reply as well.

One of the things we like to recommend to teams is to install Paratext 9 alongside Paratext 8, and run one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. This can help you get used to the new layout and evaluate how it can help you, without having to fully commit to installing it on everybody’s machines.

That being said, Stephen+Katt is right, there’s no migration/moving involved. It’s mostly a matter of installing the new version and getting used to a few changes.

Comments

If you search my username on this site, you may find that I am a user that might give frowns (and also much appreciation) to the PT team. I really like the tool, even if the nature of a support-forum will mainly have me express some open issues or problems.

The local language project is much older and does much more than just translation of one book. So we have a custom reference-number system for each text, have a complex but fully separate Flex installation with a very varied text corpus and have tried adapting PT as much as possible (and as far as I can tell legally) to the local needs (we have a need for a very extensive glossary for total beginner-readers). For example by using a custom style sheet or a glossary with dummy chapter-numbers.

So presently I have not time at all to test different versions, and when we are ready to make the not-move I hope to not meet any issues, in all the areas, where we made “legal hacks”, on certain features as described in the documentation.

Life experience is telling me that we will have some issues, and I would love to be wrong. In any case I am hearing very friendly and attractive invitations (is wooing the right verb?) towards version nine, and can now tell you that I will try to give it an open mind and the benefit. In that sense I thank you for the input you have provided here - beyond the immediate issue of sub-windows. (I am now regularly using my own work-around as described above, and it does help me a lot.)