Parallels is excellent. However, I think a small change to the way it handles full screen mode would make it easier to use. I don't know the underlying technical details of what's going on, but right now it seems to be "always on top". So you can go full-screen, and if you press Cmd-Tab or otherwise activate another application, the menu bar and dock reappear, but you can't see or get to any other windows. Similarly, in full screen on a second monitor, any windows that are moved to or open on that display are inaccessible. This has caused difficulty and confusion for me this morning a couple of times already: while running Parallels full-screen on a second monitor, I opened another application's help and nothing appeared to happen. It took me a while to realize that the help viewer was opening on my second monitor "under" the Parallels screen. Later, I had Parallels active and tried to open its preferences. Apparently the modal preferences window opened underneath the full-screen Parallels session, making the entire thing inaccessible. I had to force-quit it and lost some work. I know there must be another way to do this, because Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection, of all things, does a fairly good job. When it's full screen, you can put other windows on top as well as hide and show the menu bar and dock. This is fairly useful, as when some long process is running in Windows, you can let it go in the background and keep an eye on it. It also avoids the problem of "invisible" windows and lockout situations. I hope you can consider this request in future updates. Thanks for the continuing amazing work!
I've definitely had this happen more than once... usually a moderate amount of blithely banging on the various exposé keys and escape will get the modal active so I can do whatever it is I wanted to do, but I've had to force quit at least a couple of times.
HI, I understand the issue but a simple solution is to run VirtueDesktops and run a seperate desktop for Parallels. Then you neve nedd to switch from full screen mode. You just hotkey to the other desktop.
And how about when you have dual monitors and want to just drag a window over top of your fullscreen Windows session on your secondary monitor? I also push for the motion of not having fullscreen mode not "always on top"
I disagree completely. Locking the screen for dedicated use lets you draw to it faster than if you allow other programs to cover you up. That means added performance when in full screen mode. If they made the change you guys suggest, the advantages of full screen mode would be eliminated.
I absolutely agree. Please DO NOT change the way full screen mode works, it's working great the way it is. *
I would like to see the ability to jump to a different resolutions when entering and exiting full screen mode. I have 1440 x 900 and when I jump out of full screen (on a MacBook) I can't see the button with the Start button - I would like to use another resolution when running in a window (800 x 600). I'm using Parallels exclusively since beta 6 and have not booted up into my boot camp. Good work!!!
I don't think that's technically accurate. The screen isn't locked or dedicated. It's just opened with the wrong flags. I highly doubt you'd see the slightest performance difference if it were changed. In fact, I don't think there's any performance difference between full screen and windowed mode as it is -- it's still running in a window, just one that doesn't have any borders, fills the screen, and (for the moment) insists on being above the others.
If you read the discussion here you'd see that it's NOT working great for some of us (despite you putting your opinion in bold). If you like it the way it is, you could have the same exact thing by just not putting anything on top of it. There's no reason no to have the option. Plus, the way it currently is can effectively hang the program. Have you ever used Remote Desktop Connection? It works a lot more smoothly in this regard.
I have a related but different suggestion. I noticed when I put my Mac to sleep (dual monitors) with Parallels running full screen on the second monitor and then wake up my computer without the second monitor, the VM shows up at the resolution of the second monitor on my main monitor. This is problematic because I have to manually change the resolution. Could you provide a feature where when the second monitor is disconnected the VM reverts automatically to non-full screen mode? Thanks.
This does work, but I noticed in Beta6 you have to UNcheck the preference setting "Change Mac OS X Resolution" on the "User Interface" tab of the preferences window. In Beta5, I had to check it, but in Beta6, I had to uncheck it. To use it: run Parallels in a window, then set the resolution to whatever you want (I use 1200x800 on my MBP) then enter full-screen mode. If the preference setting is set the correct way (for me it was checked on b5, unchecked on b6 as I said above), the Windows session should resize to 1440x900 in full-screen and go back to 1200x800 in a window. IF you have the Parallels Tools installed (doesn't work if you don't, as far as I know -- but you should).
Well, assuming that they're doing it correctly, by calling CGDisplayCapture, they can optimize drawing under the assumption that nobody else is using the screen. This is a common technique when optimizing drawing in games, for example. I used to write Mac games for a living, so I know what I'm talking about when it comes to optimizing drawing graphics on the Mac.
Are you sure this is really still the case nowadays? I don't think so. Window operlapping is IMHO entirely done by GPU compositing in Quartz extreme, so apps can write to windows as if they were always uncovered. You can see this if you watch CPU usage while moving one window over another (whatever complex content). It causes almost no CPU load. In contrast, when sliding over the dock, CPU usage goes up to 80%. The window test affects much more screen area than the dock test - if the CPU had to redraw background windows it would also consume much more CPU. I would like to see a fullscreen mode that allows host windows on top, as I do not believe it would cost any notable amount of performance. They can still add a "always stay on top" option to make everyone happy.
I'm fairly confident this is still the case. GPU compositing is still not instantaneous, even though it does reduce the impact on the CPU. However, it's true that the impact is a lot less than it used to be. Still, I like to get every ounce of speed I can. The ability to choose which way to do it would work, assuming it's not too big a burden code-wise.
