When in Crystal mode, hitting "Command-H" doesn't hide the application as one would expect. Selecting this shorcut in the Finder menu successfully hides the application, but hitting "Command-H" just brings up the Windows menu for me. Is it something I'm doing or a maybe bug? Also, and this is more important to how I work, when I hit "Option" and click on the Mac desktop, Parallels in Crystal mode does not hide the open applications as the Mac Finder does with visible Mac applications. I'm not looking for work-arounds. These are established Mac behaviors that should function correctly in Parallels. I have a feeling it would only take a software engineer a few minutes to fix this- or maybe I'm naive?
I believe that the cmd-H is a bug. Parallels appears to have cmd hard-coded as the 'Windows' key (on a PC keyboard), which by itself does bring up the start menu. Parallels 5 Preferences list cmd in the shortcut list as mapping to 'win'. Disabling this shortcut does not change its behavior - same as if checked, and cmd-H still does not work. Modifying this shortcut so that opt-cmd is 'win' also has no affect on the apparent hard-coded 'cmd': alt-cmd then does the same thing as cmd. I suspect some legacy code that conflicts with the Parallels Preferences keyboard shortcuts, but see no way for we users to work around it for now. A shame. I use cmd-H all day long, too. The option-click on the desktop to hide the active application fails for Parallels for me, too. I think this should be fixed to provide a proper, integrated experience. Imagine it was an oversight? Like you, I hope that they will fix both of these issues in an update.
Thank you for information. It is "designed" to work like that for now. We'll consider your post in our feature-improving plans.
Unfortunately I don't see any way to workaround it. You can use Command+M to minimize windows to Dock, but I know, that is not the same.
I would echo the need for these shortcuts to be brought back under the user's control. At least make it a preference as to how we'd like that key to operate. Another option, though clunkier, is to use the option-click to hide the frontmost app. For example, if you are working in Safari and Mail and Safari is on top, option-click on the mail window below the Safari window to hide Safari and make Mail the frontmost app. Obviously, you'd need to be able to see both windows to make this work. You can also option-click on any exposed desktop to hide the frontmost app and bring the Finder to the front.
