Why aren't document windows floating in Photoshop Elements 9.0.3?

Apple doesn't provide any cross-platform APIs. Nor does Apple provide any useful APIs for preferences (their APIs only work if you have very small, very simple preferences). Adobe does work with Apple to make best use of the APIs that Apple offers. And what does any of that have to do with this topic (tabbed or floating windows in Elements)?

Hello Mr. Cox!

Good to actually "hear" from an employee who sounds like they know more than I do! Of course, that's not really saying much...

However, If you read all the posts, it is painfully obvious that the problem of floating windows is directly related to the failure of the inability of Elements (aka, Adobe) to save edits to the preferences file. In fact, I contend that the info we're complaining about here, is not even IN the standard Mac .plist file (pure plain text, XML, after all) but most likely in the "Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 Prefs.psp" file. Of course, all this data can be in a completely different place, it really doesn't matter. The point is, Elements has been unable to "remember" various settings for more than one version. The problem of putting all images in a single tabbed window even though the user is set to display them floating is but one item that does work. Even though Elements can now 'remember' to use jpeg as the Save for Web format, it still reverts to 0 (zero) as the default quality instead of the last used setting. And then there is the setting to always use the format suffix in the file name. That only works if you never change anything else in the prefs!.

Now, I don't know if it's because Apple doesn't provide enough help for your programmers or that the programmers don't understand what is being said in these forums. The result of the lack of any changes in these and many other complaints is that Adobe has gained a reputation of not caring what the user wants. At least in Elements. Perhaps Photoshop and the rest of the CSwhatever suite is perfect. Perhaps that is all Adobe is trying to do, get everyone to buy the "expensive spread." But I think you know, that's just not going to happen.

I'm sorry Adobe doesn't seem able to save the large number of details on a large number of objects, at least in Elements. But I can think of several apps, from word processors, database creators, page layout and video apps that seem to do this quite well. I just finished a 55 page book with around 150 entries on that many people. Each person could have an image or two, with shadows and/or a frame, one to four text areas with three different font sizes and a couple of styles. Each of the two to six items in are in different places on each and every page measured in pixels. The pages are automatically numbered, odd and even numbered pages with the proper binding spacing. And text boxes were linked so that text overflowed to fill as many boxes in as many places at whatever size needed. Not only does this app never crash, the files opens exactly the same every single time. Plus, with Lion, I have every minute change made to the file available in a 'versions' file that makes available replacing something with a simple drag 'n drop.

Now, I'm sure keeping up with all this is not nearly as difficult as maintaining info in a couple dozen different layers of a 10 foot square image. But no one has asked for that. All we want is for the preference setting to work! How many preferences are there, anyway? I'm betting less than 100. And your saying that an XML file can't be written to hold hundred different bits of info? I can only hope that I am seriously misunderstanding what you wrote.

But I still hope you have a great weekend! :salute: And thanks for offering your insights! ;-)

Um, it has little to do with preferences. It has to do with a choice made by the Elements team to make it work a certain way. And that happens on both platforms, so has nothing to do with platform specific settings.

Most of this discussion is saying "give us the option" about tabs or floating windows.
Only your comment mentions problems with prefs, and I originally thought it was added to the wrong topic.

And this has nothing to do with what Apple does or doesn't provide. (Apple doesn't provide a lot of what we need, but we keep asking anyway)
Plus, plist files are very, very limited in what they can store (and extremely fragile, to boot).

So, really, you're rambling on about things completely unrelated to the topic at hand.

Mr. Cox, please answer this basic question. Is Adobe going to add an update to PSE9 that would allow us to set our preference to "Float all in Windows?" That is the question we have all been asking, and no employee of Adobe will ever answer. Thanks for your help.

We can't comment on unannounced features or versions of software. But the Elements team has heard your feedback.