From Twitter 03-10-2010

[scarfman]

• 00:17:13: How, on Vista, do you bring up the window manipulation menu that used to come up with alt-space? Responses to any answers in the morning.
  
• 10:09:50: No one answered.
  
• 17:10:02: Getting extra hours at work tomorrow, yay! Away from the internet all day, boo!
  

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Comments

[bewarethespork.livejournal.com]

Not by using Alt-Tab, by any chance? If you press Alt-Tab, then let go of the Tab key, I know you get a little menu that lets you cycle through open windows by hitting the Tab key until you get to the one you want. Is that what you were looking for?

Just to check what Alt-Space does, I tried it in my browser, and it popped up with the little menu that comes up in the corner of programs, with minimise/maximise/restore and all of that stuff. I'm running Windows 7, though, so maybe it's fixed an issue that Vista had or something like that?

I don't know. This probably wasn't helpful at all. I hope somebody comes along and can actually answer your question!

[scarfman]

The little menu that comes up in the corner of programs, with minimise/maximise/restore and all of that stuff, is the window manipulation menu that I'm after. Alt-Space still brings it up on Vista with older programs, but there must be a way to do it in Vista programs too and that's what I'm asking.

[bewarethespork.livejournal.com]

Well, it comes up on Chrome for me, and that's a pretty new program, isn't it? I also get it in Microsoft Word 2007 (the newest version), a normal Windows Explorer window and the torrent program I'm running. Again, I'm running Windows 7, and maybe this was something that was broken in Vista and then fixed. Google and Wikipedia tell me that it should work. Which programs isn't it working in?

[scarfman]

It doesn't work with Firefox. Maybe it's a Firefox problem.

[bewarethespork.livejournal.com]

It sounds to me like it might be. That said, I just tried it in my version of Firefox and it worked just fine. Have you tried running Firefox in compatibility mode for Windows XP? If this was something that didn't happen to you in earlier versions of Windows but is happening now, that might be the problem. Also, are you running the latest version of Firefox? That could also be an issue. Or, as I said, it could be a Vista bug, though when I Googled the problem, I didn't find anything relevant. Firefox does do this odd thing where if you've clicked on an embedded object - like a YouTube video or another Flash object, like a Flash game - sometimes it doesn't recognise your keyboard shortcuts - so if I'm playing a Flash game and want to open a new tab using Ctrl-T, I have to first click elsewhere on the page then use the shortcut. Could that be it, maybe?

I'm thinking of every possible cause I can here in the hope that I'll accidentally stumble upon the solution to your problem, but it's hard for me to test things when I'm not even running Vista. I'm sorry I can't really be of more help! I'll keep trying to think of things that could be causing the issue.

[scarfman]

Have you tried running Firefox in compatibility mode for Windows XP?

What's that? How is it activated?

Also, are you running the latest version of Firefox? That could also be an issue.

I'm not. Just yesterday a dialog box offered a new version and I clicked "Never" because updates almost always remove features I use.

[bewarethespork.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure this is the same for Vista and Windows 7 - right click on the Firefox icon, select "properties" and then the tab that says "compatibility". In the drop down box, select the version of Windows in which you know the menu you want appeared properly. Then hit "apply" and you should be good.

As for updating, even as someone who uses a lot of add-ons, I've found that functionality between versions remains pretty constant. Are there any particular features you're worried about losing? It might just be that they've been rearranged or hidden under different menus in newer versions. I know I had that issue with the cache clearing function - Firefox changed the name of that feature in their menu and for a while I couldn't find it and assumed it had disappeared.

It's 2 AM here, so I need to get a bit of sleep, but maybe try what I suggested and if it doesn't work, let me know and I'll see what else I can come up with tomorrow. Good luck!

[scarfman]

When I right-click on the Firefox icon (You mean the one at the top left, correct?) I don't get the menu you describe. I get the context menu that's what I was looking for in the first place. I'd still like a keyboard equivalent for it though. Owait, you mean the desktop/explorer icon. ... No, that still doesn't give me back alt-space. Unless I must close and reopen the program for the change to go into effect; I'll try that another time.

My paranoia about losing functionality in new versions comes from Windows Media Player and, while it mightn't be fair to transfer that to Firefox, paranoia is irrational by definition.

Thanks for your help.

[bewarethespork.livejournal.com]

Firefox is usually good about functionality remaining constant between versions. I would recommend updating to the latest version; you can always uninstall it if you feel like it's made you worse off.

For compatibility mode to work, you will need to restart the browser, yes. Let me know if it works. If it doesn't...well, honestly, I'm pretty much out of answers. Try looking through Microsoft and Mozilla's websites for any mention of similar problems, maybe? That's all I can think of. Or, if you think it's specifically a Firefox problem, you should be able to file a bug report or something similar.