Open program in forefront focus

Hi,
One of the programs I use opens it's screen behind the existing open windows or full screen programs.

If I wanted it to open on top of the existing open windows, would that be a Windows setting or is that up to the programmer to incorporate into the program?

Thanks!

Hi.

May help.

Sorry, I was purposely not specific in case it was easy. ...never is though.

The program is Portals.
You put "headers" on your desktop and they contain icons to whatever you want. It is similar to the program Fences for Windows. When idle my desktop looks VERY clean with the headers docked to the right edge of my screen.

When I click on a Portals header, the portal opens to the left. The problem is it is behind the other active windows I have open. This screenshot shows an example, but I only placed 2 other windows partially in the way to demonstrate. Usually there would be other open windows completely blocking the icons in the portal.

So my question is, is there a way to make any/every part of this program open to the forefront or do you think it would take the author to add some code changes?

The program works beautiful, but I think although the author is proud of his work, it does not appear to be continued?

Anyway, thanks, and here is the screenshot.

It might be the same as Fences? Have you looked in Portals to see if there is a shortcut key you can use.

To make Fences visible (bring to foreground) it’s Win+Space

Peek function for Portals is CTRL+SHFT+SPACE

I believe Portals is at v3.30

In the Portals v3.0 changelog the following were addred:

Change Log (v3.0.0)​

MAJOR UPDATE

I have essentually overhauled the app to increase stability and performance.

> Removed bloaty material UI library
> Added Peek Function (CTRL+SHFT+SPACE to bring Portals to front)
> Added quick show/hide portals on desktop (CTRL+SHIFT+A)
> Added options to control item margin, spacing, text height etc.
> Better icon support - especially for Steam
> Added ability to Search a portal
> Added Display Name capability for Portals.
> Added support for using images as the background for Portals.
> Added ability to disable Drag/Drop
> Removed Relative Positioning (too bloaty and bearly worked) - replaced it with the ability to have layouts assigned to each of your display setups. The app will automatically detect display changes and can automatically switch between layouts.
> Added ability to switch release channel to Beta, to allow people to help with testing new versions.
> Added ability to export / import settings
> Added Full Reset capability
> Window order is now controlled by simply dragging/dropping on the main window table.

antspants said:

It might be the same as Fences? Have you looked in Portals to see if there is a shortcut key you can use.

To make Fences visible (bring to foreground) it’s Win+Space

Click to expand...

Yes, I remember that but was looking for it as the default and/or not needing a keyboard.

antspants said:

Peek function for Portals is CTRL+SHFT+SPACE

Click to expand...

This is the behavior I was looking for, but either by default or with a desktop mouse click. I did see a double desktop click option, but that hid or un-hid the whole Portals, but nothing to do with being forefront.

Thanks for your help. I did see and try most of those options, but it's been awhile because I wrote the author and waited, but did not get a response.

I think the keyboard shortcut will be the best way as the rest of the program out weigh that forefront issue.

Thanks again.

antspants said:

I believe Portals is at v3.30

Click to expand...

fyi I have been on 3.3.0.9
Thanks

So you want Portas to always be at the front? I don’t know how that would work. I predict complications.

antspants said:

So you want Portas to always be at the front? I don’t know how that would work. I predict complications.

Click to expand...

be in the front when a portal is open

The programs settings window (only needed for setup and settings) also opens behind existing open user windows. There is no reason to open the settings program and not see it. If I close my other windows OR click on it's taskbar button, the settings come to the front. After that the settings window behaves like any other window that you select, minimize, or maximize.

As you can see on my screenshot that I have 6 tabs (portal headers). In the settings I can choose to open one with a mouse click, or just hover over the header. I can also configure the portal to stay open until I close it, or have it auto-close after I make a selection.

As an example, I could be editing a file, and I want to open my notes from a text file in the Desktop Documents portal. I would click on the header, and choose MyNotes.txt, and it would open.

After my notes open, the portal would either stay open until I close it, OR auto-close (if that is the setting). The program has great features and is very well thought out. But I can't imagine any instance where I would click (or hover) to open a Portal but not be able to see or use it (until I take some other action).

Thanks

Portals has many glitches! Can't seem to make behaviors consistent!

Edwin said:

Portals has many glitches!

Click to expand...

Yes. But I found some settings that mostly work. I have 6 portals and they had different settings so I can test them. When I finally decided which ones I liked, I set them all the same, it cut down 95% of the glitches.

Every so often I go to my computer first thing in the morning and the headers are not there. Right now I have it setup pretty nice. Restarting the program is not that big of a deal to restore them, but it would be nice if when I clicked on a header that the portal is visible.

I do recall several glitches, but it seems pretty stable now except the 2 issues above. I like a clean desktop, but with easy access to what I want to get to. I have that and it is organized how I like it.

Hmmm..., I can't get it work consistently!
Easiest thing for me is to double click on the Desktop to show and hide...

Edwin said:

Hmmm..., I can't get it work consistently!
Easiest thing for me is to double click on the Desktop to show and hide...

Click to expand...

Double clicking on the Desktop hides and un-hides all of the portals, but it does not bring the portal you clicked on to the forefront of other open windows.

Thanks for looking into this. I left a feature request on the programs github. Maybe he will respond?

Hollywood said:

it does not bring the portal you clicked on to the forefront of other open windows.

Click to expand...

It does for me, if it's the last one I opened.

Hollywood said:

Maybe he will respond?

Click to expand...

I've emailed him numerous times..., no reply!

Buggy as heck! Frustrating!