Hi all, I finally came to my senses and purchased Bryce 5. The one thing about the program I find annoying is how when you open the program it takes over your desktop. Yes, you can minimize it to access other programs or windows, but I still find it annoying. The way I like to work is to go back and forth between apps by clicking on the buttons on my task bar. Bryce's User's Manual says, "By default, the Bryce environment replaces your screen whenever you launch the application." To me this implies that there is a way to shut off this behavior. So I ask the Bryce experts: Is there a way to shut off this annoying behavior so that Bryce acts like every other program on my computer? Thanks, Josh

Sorry Josh, get used to it. If you have Windows, push the Windows logo key on the left side between ctrl and alt and the task bar comes up. But go back into Bryce and it disappears again. Multitasking with Bryce is iffy at best. When Brycing, get used to letting it do its thing, you'll get fewer crashes. Bryce is very jealous when you start seeing other programs. :^)

I have my taskbar on auto hide and it pops up if I put my mouse at the bottom of the screen. even with bryce running. if it doesn't work you can use alt+tab to switch to other programs that are already running.

Unless i was dreaming, i remember on the odd occasion that the task bar popped up! This was when i had win98 and more ram!! But if i tried to do it again it wouldnt happen. :)

LOL I always have my taskbar showing.... am on Win98 tho if that makes a difference..... It never disappears in Bryce for me... ummm the top bar tho, with file, edit, etc, is a autohide thing, and will show if you move your mouse to the top in the middle some where, or even move it to the side at the top and double click, and it will show...

come to think of it, my computer used to do the same thing, but it doesn't anymore....hmmmm, wonder why?

I use WinME, maybe it doesn't work anymore in XP?

I've got two monitors on my system and Bryce only takes over one of 'em, so email, video editor, (forums ;), whatever is usually left open on one side and Bryce on the other. Have fun.

on later model keyboards, you actually have a 'windows' key, which can help..I'm running it on Win2k, but didn't have trouble with 98 (on the last machine). Alt+tab is my usual way of cycling between programs, if it comes to that. There's lots of shortcuts out there like that. Now if I could just get Bryce's title bar to stop hiding..;)

It can be annoying so i did as padawanNick and added another monitor about a year ago. I didnt add it for bryce, but it did make it nice.

Thanks for the replies everyone. It is irritating, but I guess I'll get used to it. I'm using WinXP Pro and with Bryce open nothing works unless I minimize Bryce. Alt+Tab doesn't even work. The task bar at the bottom of the screen shows, but nothing happens if I click on anything there. It kind of freaked me out the first time I opened Bryce. I thought it had crashed my system. Took me a few minutes to find the hidden menu bar at the top. Thanks again for the replies.

Josh - I was going to suggest using alt-tab, but then you say it doesn't work. It does for me though... try it again. You know that the alt key has to stay down while the tab key is pressed, right? Then each subsequent strike of the tab key selects the next open program. I'm also on XP Pro. Never had a problem with alt-tab. Good Luck Dave

oh..hmm..yeah, you hold down the 'alt' key..there's loads of shortcuts (alt+an ascii number [1-256] gives you alternate characters, such as etc)..to give an example..good luck.

Aye, Josh, welcome to Bryce 5! Yippeee! I've never had a problem with my taskbar not showing. You can use Bryce in a sub-window if you have a big enough monitor, or a graphics card that supports dektop-in-window functions, such as the ATI AIW cards or the Parhelion. But even nView supports multiple desktops, and does a great job... Still, I can't imagine why your task bar is hiding, but sometimes for the first few minutes after a cold boot, my Win98 does the same thing for a bit, and Ihave to push the Window key just to change tasks... Then it just goes away, the bug, not the window! But on XP it's always fine, 'round here. (shrugs)

Start Settings Taskbar/Start Menu Auto Hide

Thanks again everyone. Alt+tab doesn't work for me at all. And my task bar does show up. It's just that nothing works on it. I can click on the Start button and other buttons that show there, but they don't work unless I first minimize Bryce. At any rate I'm looking forward to creating something worth looking at in Bryce soon. Thanks again for the helpful suggestions.

Task bar definitely doesn't work. Nor does the clock on it update, so it's always later than you think. But alt+tab should work, and the Windows key should also. Really, there should have been a patch to make Bryce 5 XP-compatible.