REQUEST - Stay Open button in Render Window

[Stormlord]

Might it be possible to implement a "Stay Open" button in the Render Window in the next TG version?
Often I change some settings and when I do, the render window automatically dispaears.
Each time I need to bring it up again to have a look at the render to adjust my settings here and there... this behaviour SUC...S!

THX

STORMLORD

[Dune]

F3.

[KlausK]

My render view never closes itself. It is just not "on top of everything else".
Do you mean that?
So if you activate the program window the render view goes to the background but is still open.
Alt+Tab would also work to get it back up front.

I have it on a second monitor so I can always see it.

CHeers, Klaus

[raymoh]

I would think that is intentional behavior: If I want to make settings in Terragen while a job is being rendered, the render window has to go into the background so you can work. unless you have multiple screens or multiple desktops (Mac).

I would like to extend Stormlord's wish: It would be nice to run the rendering process in a separate process (program?) (independent from Terragen). Just like Stormlord, I wanted to make another change to a setting during a final render (High CPU load), with the result that Terragen and the render running with it crashed. With the render in its own process, it probably would not have crashed, or only Terragen would have crashed without affecting the render itself.
In a sense, export the render job from Terragen to the "separate" renderer.

[Dune]

Then you'd better open another session of TG and render the file there, whilst working in the first session. But it's prone to mistakes when saving and so on. I always stick to testrendering, stop, work/adjust, testrender, stop, etc.

[raymoh]

I do that most of the time, of course, but...shit happens!
What do you mean by "open another session"?
As far as I know, you can't open multiple instances of Terragen (on Mac) to work in parallel. I open Terragen and that's it.... Or am I not understanding something correctly?

[Dune]

I sometimes open another blank session to check out an object before importing it in a big scene, or to grab some nodes (copy/paste) from one file into another. Just hit the shortcut to TGD.exe again, but that's PC. Don't know about Mac.

[raymoh]

When I try to open a second, empty session here (Terragen for Mac) during an open session, I only get the "Close" dialog for the open session. Apparently it is not possible to open parallel sessions under macOS. You can switch back and forth between two sessions, but you have to save, close and reopen them again and again, which is very inconvenient. I guess I have to live with the risk of an unintentional crash when Terragen is almost at full capacity due to rendering and/or editing.

[KlausK]

I don`t know if that still works but back in the days you would have to use the terminal to run another instance of a program.

"Trying to use the Finder to open multiple instances of an application on Mac OS X will simply cause the first instance to come to the foreground.
To get around this, use the open command from the command line with the -n option.
The -n option opens a new instance of the application even if one is already running."

Or this:

"First, open the application you want to run in multiple instances.
Then, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and click with your cursor - or tap with your finger - on its taskbar icon.
One click or tap opens a new instance, two clicks or taps open two, and so on."

CHeers, Klaus

ps: a search for "two instances of program mac os" or similar got a lot of results. If the two above do not work there is more

[raymoh]

Thanks @KlausK, I will try the terminal trick when I get a chance.
Most of the tips for this problem are already a few years old and no longer work with macOS Big Sur. Apple (unfortunately) has a habit of changing also terminal commands from update to update without officially informing the user.
In summary: Apple (macOS) does not support multiple opening of programs, unless the program inherently supports multi-window mode. Anything else is trial and error at your own risk.

https://www.quora.com/Can-I-open-two-instances-of-the-same-app-on-a-Mac-not-referring-to-two-windows-for-multi-window-apps

[KlausK]

I see. I am not familiar with new Mac OSes anymore...the last one I used must have been Leopard or something, I think.
Gonna have to start my old Macbook with FinalCut7 again some time and take a look...

CHeers, Klaus

[WAS]

I think I see the actual issue...

When a render completes, it goes behind the Terragen GUI, but if you click the Render Window below TG, it doesn't respond! Weird. I have to either Alt + Tab, or hover over the program (Windows 7+) and select the Render Window.

[Dune]

That's why I mentioned F3 (though perhaps a bit unobtrusive); if you click that, the render window will pop up, whether it's been used or not, finished or not. In Windows. Only time it doesn't respond is in the internal postwork (GISD and such).

[raymoh]

Here on a Mac I can't reproduce this behavior: After rendering, the "Render View" window remains as it is: In the foreground or background, depending on how you left it after the "Render" command. Nothing changes by itself, "freezes" or has to be corrected manually. The foreground/background behavior is as it should be. When you click on the main window or the Render View window, it moves to the foreground or background until you change it again, without any issues.
In this context, I don't need a "Stay open" button.
Your observed behavior could be a bug of certain Windows configurations.

[WAS]

That's why I mentioned F3 (though perhaps a bit unobtrusive); if you click that, the render window will pop up, whether it's been used or not, finished or not. In Windows. Only time it doesn't respond is in the internal postwork (GISD and such).

I suggest following the steps to reproduce before saying "only". F3 does return the window to the foreground, but if you're an average windows user, you're likely going to be clicking things. Put TG into windowed mode, start a render in foreground and let it finish. When it finishes it will become the background window as the 3D preview becomes active and now the GUI is priority. But when you click on the clearly visible render window under Terragen, it doesn't respond strangely.