Best Practices... Make a Stickie???

cbaxter · Sep 14, 2006

Hello, I just recently purchased a MacBook with 2.0 w/ 2GB RAM. I bought this system because I was recently at a conference watching some speakers use Parallels pretty seemlessly.

What I wanted to see is what best practices are being used when running a VM with virtual machines.

One specific question is... Can I return to OSX from my VM with out the VM window still over my OSX GUI? I saw some speakers doing this and I wanted to see what settings etc were being used to make the process seemless.

It would be nice is you all at Parralles had a section that included this stuff. I am sure you have some very great ideas on creating tutorials for setting up many of the oddites that occur when installing XP. So please if anyone can help or Parallels if you can help that would be great! Thanks!

Not wanting to bust my machine,
cbaxter

constant · Sep 14, 2006

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There is a "how to" forum. Unfortunately, a seemingly endless list ignoramuses keep posting their problems in there.
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AlanH · Sep 14, 2006

Command-Tab is the quickest way I know. If you hold Command down then press tab you get a tool bar displaying your open applications. While still holding down Command,, tab along to select the application you want, or use the mouse to click it. This works anywhere in OSX, not just in Parallels.

dscottbuch · Sep 21, 2006

Command-Tab is the quickest way I know. If you hold Command down then press tab you get a tool bar displaying your open applications. While still holding down Command,, tab along to select the application you want, or use the mouse to click it. This works anywhere in OSX, not just in Parallels.

I'm now running 1884. In previous versions the option-command-arrow keys would switch between Desktops in VirtueDesktop while in Full Screen mode, now they do not seem to be seen by the Mac OS. Also the command-tab does not work either in Full Screen mode. Does anyone know of any setting to fix this? I've tried redefining the various key squences for the actions with no luck so far. It would also be acceptable if the ctrl-alt would ONLY release the cursor in parallels, instead of also dropping out of full-screen, which is what it currently does.

Thanks

AlanH · Sep 21, 2006

I'm running 1896.2 on a 2 GByte Mac Pro, and Command-Tab works fine here. I'm pretty sure it was working OK in version 1884 as well.

I run two screens and I operate a Win98se VM in full screen mode on my secondary (non Apple menu) 1280x1024 screen. This gives the Windows desktop a full screen without problems with the dock or the Apple menu, and leaves the primary screen for OS X.

I can Command-Tab to get back to the OS X cursor and leave the Win98 display as it was. This makes it unnecessary to use Control-Alt to release the mouse and keyboard. In that state I can then move OS X windows over the top of the VM console display, so it behaves like a window. And I can use Exposé F9 to select other windows that may have been on that screen when I started up the Win98 VM.

These features seem to make a usable system for me.

dscottbuch · Sep 21, 2006

I'm not running on a secondary display/screen but on a second Desktop in VirtueDesktops. I used to be able to switch between Desktops using the default VertueDesktops hot keys (option-command-arrow keys) but this no longer works, nor does command-tab. Just trying to determine if there's a way in Parallels to pass these key combinations through to VirtueDesktop?

aquarian1954 · Sep 22, 2006

AlanH said:
Command-Tab is the quickest way I know. If you hold Command down then press tab you get a tool bar displaying your open applications. While still holding down Command,, tab along to select the application you want, or use the mouse to click it. This works anywhere in OSX, not just in Parallels.

If you use an Apple Mighty Mouse, the middle button (the little joystick thing) can be set to produce the same result as command-tab when pressed. It's simple, then, to point at the application icon and left-click to task switch.

If you use a third-party mouse with the same abilities, just borrow a Mighty Mouse, plug it in and program it, then switch back to your mouse.

AlanH · Sep 23, 2006

Nice! Thanks for that, aquarian1954.

You just select "Application Switcher" as the scroll button action. I was concerned that, with the keyboard combo you have to hold Command to keep the switcher menu on screen, but that seems to be unnecessary with the scroll button option.

luz · Sep 23, 2006

dscottbuch said:
I'm now running 1884. In previous versions the option-command-arrow keys would switch between Desktops in VirtueDesktop while in Full Screen mode, now they do not seem to be seen by the Mac OS.

Make sure you turn off "Enable access for assistive devices" option (at the bottom of Mac OS X System Preferences, "Universal Access" section). Note that tools like Textpander (automatic phrase typing) need that setting on, so you can't use these in parallel with Parallels...

I hope Parallels will find a way to make Apple-Tab etc. work even with "assistive devices" on some happy day

dscottbuch · Sep 26, 2006

Luz,

Thanks, that almost did it (turning off 'enable access for assitive devices'). Now it recognized the alt-command-tab while in full screen and the desktop will swtich but when I get back to the 'Main' desktop Parallels drops out of full screen and the desktop switches back????

Thanks for all the help.

edit: actually after more experience Parallels is dropping out of full screen whenever Parallels is no longer the active application. It didn't do this before. Did this change or did I mess up a preference I didn't know about?

Edit 2: Apologies - nevermind. I found the preference I had changed in trying to make is work before (exit full screen on loss of focus). All is now working