Losing toolbox pallete in Excel and Word whenswitching screens with Open Spaces

[FiniteRex]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I heavily use the Open Spaces feature, working in one screen, moving to another where my email is open, and to another where I have a streaming web music application (Pandora.com). I will be working in Excel with the toolbox open, switch screens with the <control> <arrow> key, and the toolbox will move to that screen. Upon returning to the screen with Excel, the toolbox remains in the screen I moved to before. It cannot return. Even turning it on and off does not return it to the screen. I can turn it off before I move, but that takes thinking

Any help is appreciated.
mjh

 

[Lars Corneliussen]

Same Problem over here. Its really annoying!

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello mjh -

It's a given that Office 2008 apps & OS X Spaces do not play well together.
I'm afraid you'll need to be patient while Apple & MS get the matter
resolved. Unfortunately there is no "help" to be offered.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[FiniteRex]

Thanks for the replies. I'll just have to remember to turn off the pallet for the time being.

mjh

 

[Stonefield]

I would suggest that MS makes the palettes (Address bar and Toolbox) optionally sticky to the sheet as a work around. With optionally, I mean it can be a preference that a user can switch on off. With sticky, I mean that MS embeds the two palettes into the spreadsheet window, Addres bar on top, and Toolbox on the right. I believe it would be easier to deal with the window activation issue that I think this problem originates from.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I would suggest that MS makes the palettes (Address bar and Toolbox)
optionally sticky to the sheet as a work around. With optionally, I mean it
can be a preference that a user can switch on off. With sticky, I mean that MS
embeds the two palettes into the spreadsheet window, Addres bar on top, and
Toolbox on the right. I believe it would be easier to deal with the window
activation issue that I think this problem originates from.

Maybe it would for you, but not necessarily for others. In any case, you can
always (and are encouraged to) make suggestions like these by using the send
feedback choice in the Help menu.

 

[Stonefield]

Did you really read this message thoroughly? I wrote optionally, which would make the app behave as it does today, if not selecting this option from preferences. Migth be that this is tricky for the developers, but I think not.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Did you really read this message thoroughly? I wrote optionally, which would
make the app behave as it does today, if not selecting this option from
preferences. Migth be that this is tricky for the developers, but I think not.

It has been my experience as a software developer, that almost without
exception, the items that a user thinks should not be "tricky for the
developers", most certainly is; and often vice versa. In any case, we have
absolutely no perception as to the level of difficulty, or how this task may
fit into the overall list of development priorities. Our only hope is to use
Send Feedback from the help menu to communicate our desires and preferences
to Microsoft, and hope that there are enough similar requests to boost it to
the top of the list.

 

[Pat McMillan]

To hopefully shed some light on this situation, we are aware of a number of
issues in both Excel and other Office applications and Spaces. We believe a
number of those issues are Apple's issues, and have seen similar issues with
non-Microsoft applications in Spaces. We've reported issues we've seen to
Apple and are hoping for some updates to Spaces in a future version of the
OS that will address those problems. This isn't to say that all of the
issues are Apple's, but we don't want to invest too heavily in a system
component that we believe will be changing in the future.

Thanks,

Pat

 

[Antun Karlovac]

I just ran into the same issue - really annoying. In my case, the toolbox doesn't seem to be stuck in any of the Spaces, at least I don't see it there. It just seems to have disappeared altogether.

I have to quit Word and restart to recover it.

-Antun

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I just ran into the same issue - really annoying. In my case, the toolbox
doesn't seem to be stuck in any of the Spaces, at least I don't see it there.
It just seems to have disappeared altogether.

I have to quit Word and restart to recover it.

-Antun

Office applications do not work properly with Spaces. Apple and Microsoft
are working on solving the issue. Meanwhile do not use Spaces. When a
solution is found it will most likely be announced on Mactopia.

 

[Tony]

Would someone let me know of another application that has a similar issue? I am sure there are, but the majority of programs work without issues, even programs such as Adobe Photoshop (or many of their other programs) that use hanging toolboxes do not have this issue. I don't pretend to understand software development, but because most programs seem to work with Spaces, I'd put this in Microsoft's court to fix.

My current workaround is to not use the toolbox when I don't need it and use the formatting toolbar instead.

I've submitted feedback for both Microsoft and Apple, so please, someone step up and fix it.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Would someone let me know of another application that has a similar issue? I
am sure there are, but the majority of programs work without issues, even
programs such as Adobe Photoshop (or many of their other programs) that use
hanging toolboxes do not have this issue. I don't pretend to understand
software development, but because most programs seem to work with Spaces, I'd
put this in Microsoft's court to fix.

Unless you know how both MS and the other manufacturers build their
palettes, I don't think a simple comparative analysis is particularly
persuasive.

Palettes are highly complex window objects - and there's no reason to
think that, say, Microsoft and Adobe used anything like the same
underlying MacOS routines to manipulate them for Office and Photoshop.

Doesn't mean that MS *didn't* screw it up, but so few apps use dynamic
palette structures that it's a really weak argument.

My current workaround is to not use the toolbox when I don't need it and use
the formatting toolbar instead.

I've submitted feedback for both Microsoft and Apple, so please, someone step
up and fix it.

While I doubt it will be changed in Office 08 (I'd imagine it would take
ripping out the core U/I and rewriting it), I'm sure MacBU's gotten the
message.